Twitter is urging its roughly 5,000 global employees to work from home to lessen the risk of spreading coronavirus.

The social media company, headquartered in San Francisco, said Monday the policy was “out of an abundance of caution,” though offices would remain open.

Working from home is mandatory in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea offices, in part because of government restrictions.

The policy goes farther than other companies, which along with Twitter have also suspended non-essential travel. Google separately told 8,000 employees at its Dublin, Ireland, office to work from home after a worker showed “flu-like symptoms.”

The coronavirus has been found in 43 cases in California, including 26 in the Bay Area. There are over 89,000 cases in the world and over 3,000 deaths.

Twitter said the policy is a “big change” but the company has already been hiring more remote workers around the world.

Last month, CEO Jack Dorsey told investors on a call to discuss company earnings that Twitter would hire more workers outside San Francisco.

“Our concentration in San Francisco is not serving us any longer, and we will strive to be a far more distributed workforce, which we will use to improve our execution,” he said.

The Bay Area’s lack of office space and housing has driven rents up and made it harder for growing tech companies to hire, prompting many to expand in other states and countries.

Twitter received a payroll tax break to move its office to 1355 Market St. in the Mid-Market area in 2012. It remains in the same building after the tax break expired. In 2016, it listed some office space for sublease.

Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf