Goldman Sachs asks Indian employees to work from home as local Covid-19 cases surge

Investment banking company Goldman Sachs has asked all but the critical employees at its operation in Bengaluru to return to working from home on Wednesday, reversing moves to get staff back to one of its biggest global offices as Covid-19 cases in the Indian IT capital grew.

"This hasn't come as a surprise given how coronavirus cases have been rising in the city, specifically in the area where the office is located," news agency Reuters quoted an employee as saying.

"There's no word on how long the work-from-home will continue but my guess is that we won't be returning to office for the next three to four months."

The Bengaluru office seats about 7,000 employees - the bulk of its Indian workforce - who are involved in a variety of functions including technology, finance and human resources, while also providing support for business lines such as trading and the consumer banking business, Marcus.

Goldman Chief Executive David Solomon has been among the keenest of major banking leaders on getting employees back to the office, telling staff on a global conference call earlier this month that he hopes to have them back by this summer.

Asked about the Indian moves, a spokesman for the bank in New York said: "We continue to work on plans to return our people to office safely, and those plans will vary division by division, country by country, city by city.

"The safety of our people is our most important priority and we will remain flexible as we monitor evolving government guidelines and the uneven global vaccine rollout."

Meanwhile, a new and highly infectious strain of Covid-19 that may render vaccines less effective has been detected in India, complicating the country's battle to curb the second wave of the pandemic.

This strain has two mutations and can cause sickness in spite of the immunity developed by natural infection or vaccines. It is in addition to the UK, South African and Brazilian variants already circulating in 18 states of India.

Bengaluru reported 1,280 new infections on Tuesday, according to city data, and several sources at Goldman told Reuters that teams had been told to return to working from home ahead of an all-office townhall call at 2 pm local time on Thursday.

In March so far, nearly 14,000 new cases have been reported, more than twice the number recorded in February.