DETROIT – Ford Motor is as soon as once more delaying a return-to-work hybrid plan for salaried staff till March amid issues about rising Covid-19 instances in its house state of Michigan and uncertainty surrounding the omicron variant.

The automaker on Monday knowledgeable staff that it now plans to start a pilot part for choose staff in February and March, adopted by a full rollout of this system that was initially introduced in March 2021. Ford had beforehand stated it will not return to work below a hybrid work mannequin no sooner than January, which had already been pushed again not less than two different instances.

“The state of COVID-19 virus stays fluid, and regardless of the success of our ongoing security protocols and elevated vaccination charges, we’re shifting the beginning date of the hybrid work mannequin to March,” the corporate stated in an emailed assertion.

Ford’s delay comes days after Google stated it will not be requiring its staff to return to workplace in January as deliberate, saying it is going to wait till the brand new 12 months to evaluate when U.S. workplaces can safely return to a “secure, long-term working setting.”

About 120,000 to 130,000 of Ford’s 184,000 staff, primarily in manufacturing, have already returned to work. The corporate’s 56,000 hourly U.S. staff represented by the United Auto Staff union began returning to work in Could 2020 after Detroit’s automakers have been compelled to shutter factories for a number of weeks at the start of the pandemic.

Ford’s hybrid work program is a mix of on-site and distant working for workers whose jobs do not require them to be at a bodily facility.