JPMorgan Chase (JPM 0.15%) is going the remote-work route. According to Reuters, citing a company email it accessed, the giant American bank is asking all of its managers to permit their employees to work from home. The initiative, it nearly goes without saying by now, is an effort to practice "social distancing" measures in the face of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus threat.
The memo is an expansion of the company's similar efforts, launched late last week, to get employees who work in and near its headquarters in Manhattan to work remotely. It is also among a clutch of financial services companies trying to keep any workers able to do their jobs remotely away from the office.
Image source: JPMorgan Chase.
JPMorgan Chase has been directly affected by the coronavirus. Last Friday, the company said that two of its employees at that headquarters building had contracted it. A spokesman said that the two people had been at home since earlier that week, and were receiving medical attention with the "full support" of the big bank.
Other prominent banks besides JPMorgan Chase have also reported possible or definite cases of infection in their offices in the New York metropolitan area, namely Barclays and Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon. In Goldman's case, a fitness center worker at its New Jersey office might have caught the coronavirus. The Barclays and Mellon cases concern Manhattan-situated employees.
Separately, JPMorgan Chase isn't allowing the coronavirus crisis to halt its flow of dividends. The company's board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.90 per share of its common stock, matching the previous payout. The new distribution will be paid on April 30 to shareholders of record as of April 6. It would yield 3.8% at the current share price.
