"There is no office to return to...Trump's difficulty of stopping government employees from home"

U.S. President-elect Trump said he would not allow federal government officials to work from home, but the Washington Post (WP) reported that there are many practical difficulties.

The WP evaluated that it is not easy to return the expanded remote work of civil servants to previous levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.

First of all, federal officials are strongly opposed, and many are legally guaranteed to work from home under collective agreements signed by labor unions with the government.

About 56% of the 2.3 million federal officials are covered by collective agreements, many of which include provisions allowing remote work.

About 10 percent of all civil servants, or 228,000 people, are assigned to full-scale remote work, making their official workplaces home or a rental space far from government buildings.

Some pointed out that even if government officials try to return to the office, they may not have space to work.

The Federal General Administration (GSA), which administers government buildings, has been actively disposing of high-maintenance buildings in recent years while maintaining work from home.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Justice Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Treasury, the IRS and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have reduced properties since COVID-19, and earlier this month the GSA announced it had begun the process of disposing of 1.5 million ft² of unused federal office space.

However, some government departments have already been confused by repealing the telecommuting agreement, expecting Trump to act as soon as he takes office.

Officials are considering whether they can adjust their child care, work schedules, and retire at all, and many of them have never been hired since the introduction of telecommuting and worked five days a week in the office, the WP explained.

President Biden lifted the COVID public health emergency in 2023, but did not end working from home for government employees.

Washington, D.C., and Republicans, whose economies have been hit by the disappearance of civil servants from the city, have called for a return to the office, but the Biden administration has not acted consciously of the civil service union.