Streaming Giant Spotify has just informed its global employee base that they are welcome to work remotely until 2021.

A memo went out earlier today (May 21) explaining that SPOT is following local guidelines on the re-opening of its offices during the current COVID-19 pandemic, and will be taking a “phased approach” on the matter.

The company has told its workers that they are not required to return to the company’s premises and that they can choose to work from home till the next year.

A Spotify spokesperson had this to say about the issue at hand:

Earlier today, we announced the extension of our work-from-home arrangement for all Spotify employees globally. We will continue to track local government guidelines city-by-city and take a phased approach of opening our offices when we deem it safe to do so. Our employees’ health and safety is our top priority. No employee will be required to come into the office and can choose to work from home through the end of the year.

According to SPOT’s latest annual fiscal report, Spotify employed 4,405 people on a full-time basis worldwide in 2019, with 2,121 in the United States and 1,437 in Sweden.

That same report shows that, at the close of December 2019, Spotify ran “offices and/or operations in 79 countries and territories around the world”.

It further confirms that Spotify had €1.007bn ($1.13bn) in office space lease obligations in place at the end of 2019, over half of which weren’t due for at least another five years.

Spotify’s market cap has soared in the past 48 hours thanks to the news that it has locked in an exclusive licensing agreement with podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.

From the moment it made the Rogan announcement on Tuesday afternoon to trading close yesterday (May 20), MBW estimates that Spotify’s market cap grew by nearly $4bn ($3.79bn) on the New York Stock Exchange – up from $31.50bn to $35.29bn.

As a result Spotify is currently worth more in market cap terms than at any point since August 2018, nearly two years ago.

Over a thousand Joe Rogan podcasts will land on Spotify on September 1, with both the audio and video of these episodes becoming exclusive on SPOT – and therefore unavailable on YouTube and Apple Podcasts – later this year.

In April last year, Rogan stated that his podcast was being downloaded 190m times each month. The JRE was the most popular podcast on Apple platforms last year, beating the New York Times’ The Daily into second spot.

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