Amazon is recommending that employees in its New York City and New Jersey offices work from home due to the coronavirus outbreak

Elaine Thompson/AP

Amazon is recommending that its employees in New York City and New Jersey work from home as the coronavirus continues to spread.

The company advised employees on Monday to work remotely beginning March 10 until the end of the month. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the news.

There are 142 confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Monday.

An employee at Amazon's corporate office in New York confirmed to Business Insider that the company has recommended all employees who work in a role that can be done from home do so through the end of the month.

"The email left it a little open ended as far as working with your manager to establish expectations," the employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Business Insider. "But direction from my senior manager to our team was pretty clear that we should not come in this week and would re-evaluate at the end of week."

Amazon issued a similar directive to employees at its Seattle headquarters last week. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter have also asked employees to stay home.

A spokesperson for Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

The coronavirus, which began in Wuhan, China, more than two months ago, causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19. Cases have been recorded in more than 100 countries, more than 111,000 people have been infected, and more than 3,900 people have died from the virus. Though the vast majority of cases are in China, nearly 770 deaths have been reported outside of mainland China, including 22 in the US.

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