BENGALURU – Snap will require employees to work from its offices 80 per cent of the time, starting from the end of February, the company said on Monday.

“After working remotely for so long, we’re excited to get everyone back together next year with our new 80/20 hybrid model,” a spokesman for the social media platform said in an e-mailed statement.

Bloomberg News first reported the development and said the owner of photo messaging app Snapchat had asked employees to be in the office four days a week from February.

Santa Monica, California-based Snap said in August it would lay off 20 per cent of all staff and shut down projects to cut costs amid a deteriorating economy.

The tech industry was among the first to allow employees to work from home when Covid-19 hit the United States in 2020. But the extent to which technology companies are embracing permanent remote work is now diverging.

Last month, ride-hailing service Uber asked its employees to work from the office twice a week.

Earlier this month, billionaire Elon Musk told Twitter employees that remote work would no longer be allowed and that they would be expected to be in the office for at least 40 hours per week.

Reuters had earlier carried a report, citing a memo that Snap chief executive Evan Spiegel wrote saying that despite reducing spending in some areas, the company must now “face the consequences of our lower revenue growth and adapt to the market environment”. REUTERS