Passersby near the News Corp. building in New York
Keith Bedford | Reuters
News Corp has halted nonessential business travel for its employees as of yesterday due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.
“I can confirm that as of yesterday we have made the decision that all News Corp employees should avoid non-essential business travel until further notice,” the spokesperson said.
The New York-based media company, which owns The Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins Publishers, joins a growing list of U.S. companies that are restricting employee travel as the virus intensifies. News Corp had roughly 28,000 employees as of June 30, 2019, about 10,000 of whom were located in the U.S., according to data from Statista.
Amazon started restricting all nonessential employee travel in the U.S. on Friday. Facebook also announced travel restrictions for its employees on Monday, but said that if employees must visit China, they need to receive approval first.
There are more than 85,000 confirmed cases of the virus worldwide and at least 2,933 confirmed deaths.
Other companies that have suspended operations or implemented travel restrictions over the virus outbreak include Disney, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Ford Motor.
Analysts have said that wide-scale cancellations of travel concentrated in big cities in the U.S. are beginning to impact smaller U.S. cities.
Source: Business - cnbc.com
