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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy vow their Department of Government Efficiency will end work-from-home for federal bureaucrats — but we don’t see why President-elect Trump should wait on DOGE to pull the plug.
Indeed, Trump should warn the federal workforce to expect the rules to start changing on Jan. 21, right after he’s inaugurated.
OK, the country will always have more remote work than it did before COVID: We learned we can do it, even if it’s got its challenges.
And some people have decided they’d rather earn less to work on their own terms — as is their right.
Yet most of America has mainly dropped remote work entirely, for a host of good reasons.
Not Uncle Sam: Years after any COVID threat vanished, a whopping 1.1 million federal employees — nearly half of the civilian workforce — are still eligible to work from home, reports the Office of Management and Budget.
Some 228,000, or 10%, work fully remote.
And the 900,000 or so other remote-eligible employees work in-person just 61.2% of their hours.
At some agencies, it’s far lower: Only 38.8% at the Department of Education, for example.
Indeed, not counting all-remote workers, the entire DOE workforce is in-person for just 43.4% of its hours.
Eliminating that department may prove easier than anyone now thinks.
Again, these statistics surely include some people working ardently from home — but also plenty who . . . aren’t.
How many will quit once remote options shrink? And how many of those will be missed?
It’s already past time to start finding out, and while the prez-elect can’t order anything for another two months, he can certainly put everyone on notice.
The work-in-your-PJs-whenever-you-like era is about to end. If that’s a deal-breaker, update your résumé.