San Francisco, March 13 (IANS): Amazon has now joined a growing number of companies around the world in recommending their staff to work from home if their roles allow in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a guidance issued by the online retail giant on Thursday, all employees of the company, irrespective of their location, can work from home if they can through to the end of this month.

"We continue to work closely with public and private medical experts to ensure we are taking the right precautions as the situation continues to evolve," CNBC quoted an Amazon spokesperson as saying in a statement.

"As a result, we are now recommending that all of our employees globally who are able to work from home do so through the end of March."

The decision was taken with the aim of enabling greater social distancing and reduce the impact on public transportation, according to Amazon.

Amazon earlier this week said it would give two weeks of extra paid time off for full and part-time employees who are diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in quarantine.

Several other companies have already recommended work from home for employees hit by the coronavirus outbreak, with Twitter even making work from home mandatory for all its employees around the world.

The novel coronavirus has spread globally, affecting more than 127,000 people and killing over 4,700.