DENVER, Colo. — It really is amazing how much you can learn when a beehive is right in front of you. That's especially true when you have the help of someone like Mike Rosol. He's not just any beekeeper; he's attending to bees who live on the properties of major companies like Gates Corporation.

Gates Corporation is a leading manufacturer of application-specific fluid power and power transmission solutions. Head of sustainability, Christopher Thomas, says it is prime to their mission for employees to be a part of direct impact within the community.

"We have a global footprint, offices, manufacturing, distribution, all around the world but have maintained our presence here in Denver, Colorado since our beginnings over 100 years ago," said Thomas. "We encourage people to find those causes, those missions, that make sense both to them but also what's our impact, what's the greater impact that we can create."

For Gates, the partnership with a company like Free Range Beehives was a no-brainer. Companies like IBM and Google have followed suit, dedicating budget lines to saving the bees. Co-founder and VP of operations at Free Range Beehives, John Rosol, explains there is no time to waste when educating people on the declining bee population.

"So, our goal at Free Range Beehives, and what we hope the goal of similar beekeepers and the corporations we work with, is to establish these populations that are good for the environment and the bees," Rosol said. "The situation is quite severe, unfortunately. The bees are facing threats from a number of sources that are primarily human-caused. A world without bees doesn't have humans in it. They are critical pollinators both for agriculture and for the natural world."

There are a few reasons this effort is so different than simply having a hive in your backyard. Expert beekeepers are on site taking care of the hives, companies have more funds to invest, and thousands of employees are impacted by the education they provide.

"Bees are incredibly interconnected with humans and they pollinate 1 out of 3 three bites of food we eat, so over 30% of our crops come from bees, and those are things like avocados, onions, and coffee, which I know I couldn't' live without," Rosol explained.

They found a void to fill, all while connecting these companies to the communities they are a part of.

"There's lots of people here and generally if the leadership cares about these kinds of initiatives, it trickles down," Rosol said.

Another co-founder of Free Range Beehives, Dave Mathias, says by having these partnerships the bees have a better chance of rebounding.

"The impact as it relates to educating employees and the community can be very fruitful. We do a lot of engagement with employees where we take them into the hives," Mathias said. "Any company can write a check to an organization and we just appreciate and I know our clients and partners appreciate that it's something that they are doing that has direct and measurable impact within the community."

They say it's a win-win situation. It's an effort to save the declining bee population and an opportunity to make great impressions and investments within communities.

If you would like to learn more about Free Range Beehives and the work they do, click here.

Related video above: New job scam sweeping the country

If your company lays you off, your employer might offer you severance pay — but only if you agree to adhere to a number of restrictions.

Staying quiet is often one of them.

But the National Labor Relations Board this week put employers on notice that they can no longer silence laid-off employees in two very specific ways that the board says violates employees' rights under sections 7 and 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.

Employers can no longer include a broadly written confidentiality clause that requires you to keep mum about the terms of your severance agreement. And they can no longer include a broadly written non-disparagement clause that prohibits you from discussing the terms and conditions of your employment with third parties.

"A severance agreement is unlawful if it precludes an employee from assisting coworkers with workplace issues concerning their employer, and from communicating with others, including a union, and the Board, about his employment," the board wrote in its decision Tuesday.

The ruling is a reversal of what the Trump-era NLRB members had decided in a prior case were lawful restrictions on employees as a condition of receiving severance.

With the exception of railroads and airlines, U.S. business employers are subject to the NLRB's authority.

While the labor board's ruling this week could be appealed, the ruling is effective immediately. That means employers must review — and, if necessary, revise — their severance agreements to ensure they don't include overly broad language that would restrict workers' rights in the two ways the board ruling indicates.

The board's decision will give back a bit of power to employees, but how it plays out remains to be seen.

"Companies are definitely incentivized to silence their departing employees...[because it helps them keep] all the skeletons in the closet," employment attorney Alex Granovsky told CNN via email.

"This decision opens the door. While on the one hand sunlight is the best medicine, and greater exposure should lead to better companies, this decision could also change the dynamics of a severance negotiation."

CNN's Chris Isidore contributed to this report.

Attorney General Ken Paxton has issued Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to ERCOT and other power companies after millions of Texans were left in the dark amid winter weather.

The CIDs surround power outages, emergency plans, energy pricing and more.

“I’m using the full scope of my Constitutional powers to launch an investigation into ERCOT and other entities that grossly mishandled this week’s extreme winter weather. While Texans pulled together to get their communities through this disaster, they were largely left in the dark,” said Attorney General Paxton. “We will get to the bottom of this power failure and I will tirelessly pursue justice for Texans.”

Those who received a CID include:

• AEP Texas
• Calpine Corporation
• CenterPoint Energy Services
• ERCOT
• Griddy Energy
• La Frontera Holdings
• Luminant Generation Company
• NRG Texas Power
• Oncor Electric Delivery Company
• Panda Sherman Power
• Temple Generation I
• Texas-New Mexico Power Company

This article was written by Sydney Isenberg for KXXV.

Several national retailers say they’ll continue to require face coverings in their stores even as Texas and some other states lift mask requirements.

Both the Lone Star State and Mississippi announced Tuesday that they’d end their face mask requirements in public spaces and said they’d allow businesses to reopen at 100% capacity as COVID-19 cases dip across the country.

Other states have taken similar actions, despite warnings from public health officials that the pandemic is far from over and easing restrictions threatens the nation’s recovery.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, criticized these states for lifting their mask mandates, calling the decision “inexplicable” and “ill-advised.”

Though these states aren’t requiring their residents to wear masks, many national stores are continuing to ask all customers to do so, at least for now.

Below is a list of major retailers continuing mask policies:

Target

A Target spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the company is still requiring its guests and employees to wear masks or face coverings in all of its stores, except for guests with underlying medical conditions and young children. And as more Americans get vaccinated for COVID-19, Target is still asking those who have received a vaccine to wear masks and follow all social distancing guidelines.

Kroger

Kroger, the country’s largest chain of groceries, said in a statement Thursday that it will continue to require everyone in its stores to wear masks until “all our frontline grocery associates can receive the COVID-19 vaccine.” The company owns stores under different names as well, including King Soopers, Ralphs and Dillons. It’s also advocating for federal, state and local officials to prioritize grocery workers in vaccine rollout plans.

CVS

CVS said in a statement Thursday that its face covering policy remains in effect at all of its pharmacies nationwide, based on federal public health recommendations. The company said, “if a customer is not wearing a mask or face covering, we will refer them to our signage and ask that they help protect themselves and those around them by listening to the experts and heeding the call to wear a face covering.”

Walgreens

Like CVS, fellow pharmacy chain Walgreens says its masking policy is not changing. It still requires team members and customers to wear masks, unless doing so would inhibit the individual’s health or if the person is under 2 years old. “We have signage on doors and make announcements over the store's public address system to remind customers that face covers are required,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

ALDI

ALDI, a grocery chain which has locations in both Texas and Mississippi, said it doesn’t plan to make any adjustments to its safety measures at this time. A company spokesperson said in a statement, “For the health and well-being of the communities we serve and for the protection of our employees, we will maintain our current nationwide policy requiring all employees and customers to wear a face covering when shopping in our stores.”

Starbucks

Starbucks will also keep enforcing its face mask requirements for its staff and customers. In a statement, a spokesperson said the coffee company will “continue to make decisions rooted in facts and science and are committed to meeting or exceeding public health mandates.”

Others

Reports from USA Today, Bloomberg and CBS News show additional companies, like Best Buy, Kohl’s, and Macy’s are also continuing their mask mandates. We’ve reached out to them for confirmation and are waiting to hear back.

CDC still asking people to mask up

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is continuing to ask Americans to mask up when in public spaces to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to prevent any more spikes in cases. Click here to learn more about masking.

The owners of restaurants, amusement parks and retail shops, many of them desperate for workers, are sounding an unusual note of gratitude this summer:

Thank goodness for teenagers.

As the U.S. economy bounds back with unexpected speed from the pandemic recession and customer demand intensifies, high school-age kids are filling jobs that older workers can’t — or won’t.

The result is that teens who are willing to bus restaurant tables or serve as water-park lifeguards are commanding $15, $17 or more an hour, plus bonuses in some instances or money to help pay for school classes. The trend marks a shift from the period after the 2007-2009 Great Recession, when older workers often took such jobs and teens were sometimes squeezed out.

The time, an acute labor shortage, especially at restaurants, tourism and entertainment businesses, has made teenage workers highly popular again.

"We’re very thankful they are here,’" says Akash Kapoor, CEO of Curry Up Now. Fifty teenagers are working this summer at his five San Francisco-area Indian street food restaurants, up from only about a dozen last year. "We may not be open if they weren’t here. We need bodies."

The proportion of Americans ages 16-19 who are working is higher than it's been in years: In May, 33.2% of them had jobs, the highest such percentage since 2008. Though the figure dipped to 31.9% in June, the Labor Department reported Friday, that is still higher than it was before the pandemic devastated the economy last spring.

At the Cattivella Italian restaurant in Denver, for instance, Harry Hittle, 16, is earning up to $22.50 an hour, including tips, from his job clearing restaurant tables. He's used the windfall to buy gas and insurance for his car and has splurged on a road bike and an electric guitar.

"There's never been a better time to apply for a job if you're a teen," says Mathieu Stevenson, CEO of Snagajob, an online job site for hourly work.

Consider the findings of Neeta Fogg, Paul Harrington and Ishwar Khatiwada, researchers at Drexel University's Center for Labor Markets and Policy who issue an annual forecast for the teenage summer job market. This year, they predict, will be the best summer for teenage lifeguards, ice cream scoopers and sales clerks since 2008; 31.5% of 16- to 19-year-olds will have jobs.

Teenage employment had been on a long slide, leading many analysts to lament the end of summertime jobs that gave teens work experience and a chance to mingle with colleagues and customers from varying backgrounds.

In August 1978, 50% of teenagers were working, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Their employment rate hasn’t been that high since. The figure began a long slide in 2000 and fell especially steeply during the Great Recession. The eruption of coronavirus produced a new low: Only 26.3% of teens had jobs last summer, according to the Drexel researchers.

The long-term drop in teen employment has reflected both broad economic shifts and personal choices. The U.S. economy includes fewer low-skill, entry-level jobs — ready-made for teens — than it did in the 1970s and 1980s. And such jobs that do remain have been increasingly likely to be taken by older workers, many of them foreign born.

In addition, teens from affluent families, eager to secure admission to top universities, have for years chosen summer academic programs over jobs or have pursued ambitious volunteer work in hopes of distinguishing their applications for college. Others have spent their summers playing competitive sports.

This summer, things are rather different. After collapsing last spring, the economy has rebounded much faster than expected. Restaurants, bars, retail shops and amusement parks have been overwhelmed by pent-up demand from consumers who had mostly hunkered down for a year or more.

Now, those businesses need employees to handle the influx and are scrambling to find enough. The vaccine rollout was just starting in April and May, when employers typically start hiring for summer. Some of these businesses delayed their hiring decisions, unsure whether or when the economy would fully reopen.

Foreign workers, brought in on J-1 work-and-study visas, typically filled many such summer jobs. But President Donald Trump suspended those visas as a coronavirus precaution, and the number of U.S.-issued J-1 visas tumbled 69% in the fiscal 2020 year — to 108,510, from 353,279 the year before.

In past years, for example, foreigners visiting the U.S. on visas took filled 180 summer jobs at Big Kahuna's water park in Destin, Florida. Last year, there were just three. This year, eight. Desperate to attract local teens, Big Kahuna's, which is owned by Boomers Parks, is now paying $12 an hour, up from less than $10 an hour in past years.

Compounding the labor squeeze, many older Americans have been slow to respond to a record number of job openings. Some have lingering health concerns or trouble arranging or affording child care at a time when schools are transitioning from remote to in-person learning. Other adults may have been discouraged from seeking work because of generous federal unemployment benefits, though many states have dropped these benefits, and they will end nationwide on Sept. 6.

So businesses are offering signing bonuses and whatever else they can to hire teens in a hurry.

Wendy's, which relies on teens to salt fries and ring up orders, added a way for applicants to apply for a job through their smartphones. Applicants are screened using artificial intelligence, which gets them to an interview faster than if they uploaded a resume. The idea is to hire them before another employer can.

"Speed is critical," said Randy Pianin, CEO of JAE Restaurant Group, a franchisee that owns 220 Wendy’s locations. As a perk, JAE is offering workers a way to get hold of some of their pay the day after they earn it, Pianin said, instead of having to wait two weeks for a paycheck.

Boomers Parks has raised pay at the eight amusement parks it owns and is offering bonuses of up to $50 a week for some teen workers who stay through the summer, CEO Tim Murphy said. With fewer people seemingly willing to take the jobs, Murphy said, competition for workers is fierce.

At its Sahara Sam's water park in West Berlin, New Jersey, the company lowered its minimum working age to 15 from 16 to try to recruit a larger pool of candidates.

Johnathon Miller thought he would need to wait until August, when he turned 16, to start working. But when he heard about a lowered age limit at Sahara Sam’s, he applied — and got the job. He will soon be a lifeguard, watching over the lazy river for $15 an hour, a couple of bucks more an hour than Sahara Sam’s used to pay.

"I’m looking forward to working,” said Miller, who lives in Woolwich Township, New Jersey — so much so that he got a friend interested, too: "He was like, 'Whoa, they are hiring at (age) 15?'"

At Curry Up Now, the restaurant pays $2 an hour above the minimum wage, which is $15 or more an hour, depending on the Bay Area location. The chain is also offering a fund for teens to pay for classes or books, as well as free Zoom classes on how to manage money.

Kapoor concedes that young hires require restaurant training and might not stick around for long. But there are advantages to having teens on staff. They are typically inclined to persuade their friends to work or eat there, giving Curry Up Now a stream of future workers and customers. And they have updated the restaurant’s music, adding more songs from the '80s and '90s as well as tunes from India and the Middle East.

All that said, the revival of teen employment might not last. The pre-pandemic trend toward fewer young workers at restaurants and entertainment venues could reassert itself if the economy's labor shortages are eventually resolved.

Still, Harrington, director of Drexel’s labor markets center, notes that "employers have moved down the labor queue as the labor supply of adults has become more constrained."

If the economic recovery continues to reduce unemployment, and if federal policymakers continue to restrict the influx of low-skilled foreign workers, "then the chances for sustained growth in teen employment rates are good," Harrington said.

___

Pisani reported from New York. AP writer Patty Nieberg contributed to this report from Denver.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the economy growing rapidly as it reopens from the pandemic, many employers are increasingly desperate to hire. Yet evidence suggests that as a group, the unemployed aren’t feeling the same urgency to take jobs.

Many people who are out of work are either seeking higher pay than they had before or are still reluctant to take jobs in public-facing service companies for fear of contracting COVID-19. How those two trends balance themselves out will likely set the pace for how many open positions employers can fill in the coming months.

On Friday, analysts expect the government to report that the economy added 675,000 jobs in June. That would be a substantial gain but nowhere near the gains that could be expected given the record-high number of job openings.

In fact, some economists have estimated that monthly job growth would be at least twice what the three-month average gain was for March, April and May — 540,000 — if there were no constraints on the number of workers available to fill jobs.

For June, the unemployment rate is projected to have dipped from 5.8% in May to a still-elevated 5.7%.

Total available jobs reached 9.3 million in April, the highest in 20 years of data, according to the Labor Department. The employment website Indeed has said that job postings have increased still further since then.

As the competition to keep and attract workers intensifies, especially at restaurants and tourist and entertainment venues, employers are offering higher pay, along with signing and retention bonuses and more flexible working hours. The proportion of job advertisements that promise a bonus has more than doubled in the past year, Indeed found.

The supply of potential hires is being held back by a variety of factors. Many Americans still have health concerns about working around large numbers of people. About 1.5 million people, mostly women, are no longer working or looking for work because they had to care for children when schools and day care centers shut down. And roughly 2.6 million older workers took advantage of enlarged stock portfolios and home values to retire early.

A temporary $300-a-​week federal unemployment benefit, on top of regular state jobless aid, may be enabling some people to be more selective in looking for and taking jobs. Roughly half the states plan to stop paying the supplement by the end of July in what proponents say is an effort to nudge more of the unemployed to seek jobs.

Economists at Goldman Sachs have calculated that in states that are cutting off the federal jobless payment early, the number of people who are receiving state jobless aid is declining faster than in states that plan to pay the $300-a-week benefit until it officially ends Sept. 6. That trend, which suggests could help boost hiring in June and in the subsequent months.

On Thursday, the government reported that the number of people who applied for jobless aid last week fell to 364,000, the lowest level since the pandemic began.

There are also signs that people are re-evaluating their work and personal lives and aren’t necessarily interested in returning to their old jobs, particularly those that offer modest wages. The proportion of Americans who quit their jobs in April reached its highest level in more than 20 years.

Nearly 6% of workers who are in an industry category that includes restaurants, hotels, casinos, and amusement parks quit their jobs in April — twice the proportion of workers in all sectors who did so.

Rising numbers of people quitting jobs, often for higher-paying positions, mean that even employers that have been hiring may be struggling to maintain sufficient staffing levels.

A survey of manufacturers in June found widespread complaints among factory executives about labor shortages. Many said they were experiencing heavy turnover because of what they called “wage dynamics”: Other companies are luring their workers away with higher pay.

Karen Fichuk, chief executive of Randstad North America, a recruiting and staffing firm, said that the Monster job board, which Randstad owns, found that job postings jumped 40% from May to June. Job searches, by contrast, rose just 4%.

“There is a significant gap between supply and demand,” Fichuk said.

The struggle to fill jobs coincides with a swiftly growing economy. In the first three months of the year, the government estimated that the economy expanded at a strong 6.4% annual rate. In the just-ended April-June quarter, the annual rate is thought to have reached a sizzling 10%.

And for all of 2021, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Thursday that growth will amount to 6.7%. That would be the fastest calendar-year expansion since 1984.

In the meantime, consumer confidence rose in June, according to the Conference Board, and is nearly back to its pre-pandemic level. Americans also seem undeterred by recent price increases, with the percentage of consumers who plan to buy a home, car or major appliance all rising. Home prices shot up in April by the most in 15 years.

Factory output is also expanding at a healthy pace, in part because companies are investing more in industrial machinery, aircraft and technology. Those investments could make workers more efficient in the coming years and boost longer-term growth.

The declaration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday is putting pressure on more U.S. companies to give their employees the day off, accelerating a movement that took off last year in response to the racial justice protests that swept the country.

Hundreds of top companies had already pledged last year to observe Juneteenth in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and the national reckoning on racism that followed.

But most private companies take their cues from the federal government — the country's largest employer — in drawing up their holiday calendars. President Joe Biden signed legislation Thursday establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery, following the passage of a bipartisan Congressional bill.

More than 800 companies have publicly pledged to observe Juneteenth, according to HellaCreative, a group of Black creative professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area that launched a campaign last year to build corporate support for making June 19 an official holiday. That is nearly double the number of companies that had joined the pledge last year.

Patagonia, the outdoor apparel retailer, announced that all of its U.S. stores will be closed Saturday, and its corporate offices would be closed Monday. Other brands, including Target, J.C. Penney and Best Buy had pledged last year to adopt Juneteenth as a paid holiday, though they are keeping stores open. Several major banks have said employees will get a floating paid day off.

Many companies, however, had little time to shuffle their holiday calendars. Some offered employees a regular paid day off or promised to consider adding it to their calendars next year.

Nasdaq said its U.S. exchange would stay open Friday and Monday “to maintain a fair and orderly market and to minimize operational risks” but that it would discuss its future holiday schedule with regulators and companies.

State governments that had not already declared Juneteenth a holiday were also scrambling to respond the new federal holiday. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that all state government offices will be closed Friday, superseding a state law signed just two days earlier that would have made June 19 a state holiday next year.

Even though federal holidays like Thanksgiving are widely observed, private companies are under no obligation to offer any particular day off. But since many workers don't know that, they will likely wonder why they are not getting a paid holiday for Juneteenth this year, said Carolina Valencia, a vice president in research firm Gartner’s human resource practice.

In an era of increasing employee activism and fierce competition for talent, Valencia said she expects the number of companies offering Juneteenth to surge next year after employers have had more time to react.

“Many employees are going to resent their employers for not giving them the holiday because they don't understand that it's a complicated process,” Valencia said.

But she said the devil will be in the details. Many companies will likely offer it as a floating day off, making it unlikely that Juneteenth will become a national holiday on par with July 4th or Memorial Day anytime soon.

And many notable companies have not joined the movement. Walmart, which employs 300,000 Black hourly workers and is the country’s largest private-sector employer, told The Associated Press in an email that its employees are free to use paid time off to observe any holiday they wish, including Juneteenth.

Raheem Thompson, a social media specialist for a retail company, said he was disappointed he didn't get a paid day off. Instead, he said the company sent an email acknowledging the federal holiday and pledging to consider time off in the future.

“It’s kind of bare minimum," said Thompson, who lives in Atlanta but didn't want his company named for fear of repercussions. “I don’t think as people of color, we really care that you acknowledge it via email ... that doesn’t really have any true meaning to it."

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — two months after the Confederacy had surrendered. That was also about 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Southern states.

Black Americans, especially in Texas, have long celebrated Juneteenth with church picnics and speeches. But the federal holiday declaration brought it to the attention of some Americans for the first time.

Jamie Hickey, founder of a small fitness company in Philadelphia, said he had never heard of Juneteenth until he heard about it last week on the radio. Then, his four trainers started talking about it at lunch, and he asked them if it was important to them. He decided to make it a day off next year since it was too late to cancel on clients this year.

“They said, ‘are you serious, you are just now hearing about this?’" said Hickey, who founded Truism Fitness last year after the chain fitness company where he and other trainers worked closed because of the pandemic.

Hickey said he took the lead from his employees because, as a white man, he worried about jumping into trends only to be accused of tokenism.

“I don’t want to fake. If you are fake, you get caught and it’s a million times worse," Hickey said.

That's a major concern among even the biggest employees, said Erin Eve, CEO of Ichor Strategies, which advises firms on connecting businesses with their communities. Eve said companies will get called out by their employees, customers and even investors if they take steps like observing Juneteenth without investing in Black communities or looking at their own internal diversity.

Still, Eve said the declaration of Juneteenth as a federal holiday will make companies that don't follow suit increasingly look bad.

“For current employees, it will reaffirm a dissonance with their values," Eve said.

___

Associated Press Writers Urooba Jamal, Anne D'Innocenzio, Michelle Chapman and Roger Schneider contributed to this story.

It's been 15 long months since millions of workers left their offices and set up makeshift desks at home.

But as COVID-19 cases decline and more Americans get vaccinated, companies are beginning to establish protocols about how, and whether, office life will resume.

For Wall Street banks, the growing consensus is that everyone ought to be back at their desks by Labor Day — though Citibank said it's embracing more of a hybrid model. Meanwhile, tech companies are taking a far more flexible approach.

As for workers themselves, more than half of those surveyed in a recent Pew Research Center survey said that, given the choice, they would want to keep working from home even after the pandemic subsides.

Here's how some of the biggest names in tech and finance are handling the return to office life.

Apple

Apple expects employees to return to their offices three days a week come September, CEO Tim Cook wrote in an email to employees earlier this month, according to The Verge.

"For all that we've been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other," Cook said in the email. "Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate."

Employees are expected to be in the office Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, but those with roles that allow for remote work will have the option to work from home Wednesdays and Fridays. The company is also offering up to two weeks of remote work annually and encouraging, but not requiring, vaccination.

Facebook

Facebook announced earlier this month that employees can apply for remote work if their role allows. Any worker who wants to return to the office may do so on a flexible basis but is encouraged to spend at least half of their time in the office. Employees will also be granted 20 days each year to work from a remote location.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees in a memo that he plans to continue working remotely for at least half of the next year, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNN Business.

Google

Until September, Google workers around the world can continue to work remotely before deciding between coming back to their office, working out of a different Google office or applying for full-time remote work.

"The future of work is flexibility," CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a May memo to employees.

Pichai said he expects about 60% of employees to return to their pre-pandemic offices while 20% move to a different office and 20% work from home.

Twitter

Twitter has yet to set an exact start date for welcoming employees back to the office, but it plans to start with a 20% capacity limit.

Early in the pandemic, the company said it plans to let some of its workforce continue working remotely "forever" if they choose.

"If our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen," said Twitter's vice president of people, Jennifer Christie, in a statement to CNN Business. "If not, our offices will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions, when we feel it's safe to return."

The company has stressed that it wants employees to have the choice to return to the office, but it anticipates that most workers will opt for a hybrid model, spending some time in the office and some time at home.

Uber

Uber will shift to a hybrid model in September, according to an April blog post from Nikki Krishnamurthy, the company's chief people officer.

Employees at the ride-hailing company are expected in the office three days a week, but they will have the option to work remotely the other two days.

"We feel that this combination of in-person and remote work will give people the freedom to do their best work while staying connected to their colleagues," Krishnamurthy said in the blog post.

Bank of America

Bank of America is encouraging, and expecting, all vaccinated employees to return to the office after Labor Day, CEO Brian Moynihan said this week.

"Our view is all the vaccinated teammates will be back," Moynihan said in a Bloomberg Television interview this week. "We'll be able to operate fairly normally and will then start to make provisions for the other teammates as we move through the fall."

The bank is not mandating employees to report their vaccination status, but it is expecting them to input their status in the company portal.

Citibank

Citi said in March that it recognized how people have benefited from aspects of working remotely, and that it would embrace some flexibility in the return-to-office process.

The bank said it expects up to 30% of U.S. staff to return to the office in July. The majority of Citi workers globally will be designated as "hybrid," working in the office at least three days a week and from home up to two days per week.

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs welcomed employees back to the office on Monday. The company is expecting 5,400 newly hired interns, analysts and associates in the office in addition to its returning employees.

"We are focused on progressing on our journey to gradually bring our people back together again, where it is safe to do so, and are now in a position to activate the next steps in our return to office strategy," the bank's leadership wrote in a May staff memo.

Leading up to the return to in-person work, Goldman Sachs also mandated that its employees report their vaccination status. While vaccination is not required, the company is encouraging all staff to get vaccinated if possible.

JPMorgan Chase

Last month, JPMorgan opened all of its U.S. offices to employees with a 50% occupancy cap. Executives at the bank informed staff that it expects all U.S.-based employees back in the office by early July on a consistent rotational schedule, subject to the same 50% cap.

"We firmly believe that working together in person is important for our culture, clients, businesses and teams," JPMorgan executives said.

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman took a hard line earlier this week, saying he expects the bank's New York employees back in the office by Labor Day.

"If you can go to a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office. And we want you in the office," Gorman said at an investing conference.

The company has not mandated vaccination, but Gorman noted that "well over 90%" of employees had already received their COVID-19 vaccination. That number is expected to hit 98% to 99%, according to Gorman.

The bank will continue to consider returning to the office on a case-by-case basis, Gorman said, recognizing that some employees may not be able to be vaccinated, or may be in a different situation if their office is outside of New York.