President Donald Trump wants the federal workforce back in the office, but could face challenges from unions implementing the policy.
Trump’s order also highlights the federal government’s ongoing issues with office space, which costs taxpayers billions.
The federal government employs more than 4 million workers, owns 460 million square feet of office space and spends $8 billion yearly to operate, maintain and lease that space. About 2.3 million of those employees are civilians.
For decades, the government has had trouble determining how much office space it needs. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report noted that retaining excess and underused space is one of the key reasons that federal real property management has remained on the GAO’s High-Risk List since 2003.
On his first day, Trump issued a brief but blunt order telling the heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch to take steps to “terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union representing more than 800,000 workers, immediately rebuffed Trump’s executive order.
“To justify this backward action, lawmakers and members of President Trump’s transition team have spent months exaggerating the number of federal employees who telework and accusing those who do of failing to perform the duties of their jobs,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “The truth is that less than half of all federal jobs are eligible for telework, and the workers who are eligible to telework still spend most of their work hours at their regular duty stations.”
The order doesn’t mention telework or differentiate between remote work and telework. Trump’s order said steps should be taken “as soon as practicable ” and “implemented consistent with applicable law.”
Kelley said that remote work options are vital to recruitment efforts.
“Providing eligible employees with the opportunity to work hybrid schedules is a key tool for recruiting and retaining workers in both the public and private sectors,” he said. “Restricting the use of hybrid work arrangements will make it harder for federal agencies to compete for top talent.”
The federal government’s trouble with office space pre-dates the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even before the pandemic shifted the balance between in-office and remote work, federal agencies struggled to identify and let go of unneeded space,” according to a 2023 GAO report. “Operating unused space has unnecessary financial and environmental costs.”
That same report found that 17 federal agencies’ headquarters buildings were at 25% capacity or less in the first three months of 2023. However, Office of Management and Budget officials said they hadn’t developed benchmarks for measuring building use to account for increases in telework.
A 2024 GAO report that looked at four federal agencies found telework usage varied by agency from fiscal years 2019 through 2023. For example, the Farm Service Agency reported telework use was at 11% of total hours worked. However, at the Veterans Benefits Administration, telework use was around 66%. Three of the four agencies that GAO evaluated in that report had “not yet evaluated telework’s role in agency performance outcomes.”
Some lawmakers have blamed telework and remote work for poor outcomes.
“Service backlogs and delays, unanswered phone calls and emails, and no-show appointments are harming the health, lives, and aspirations of Americans,” Iowa U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst wrote in a 2024 report.
“The bureaucrat class was given an inch during COVID with ‘temporary’ telework, and they have taken a mile at the expense of taxpayers,” Ernst said. “Holding Washington accountable starts with ensuring federal employees aren’t ‘working’ from bubble baths or the golf course on the taxpayer’s dime.”
A 2024 report from the Office of Management and Budget found that as of May 2024, about 50% of federal workers worked every day in roles that were not eligible for telework At the same time, telework-eligible personnel spent about 60% of regular, working hours in-person, at agency-assigned job sites. A 2024 U.S. Office of Personnel Management report found about 10%, or 228,000 employees, worked entirely remotely.
A 2022 Congressional Budget Office report noted “that the federal workforce has telework rates generally in line with the private sector.”
