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Biden expected to be 'aggressive' on federal workers' return to office

A report detailed an email obtained by the media and sent to Biden cabinet members on Friday with plans to bring federal workers back into offices.
President Joe Biden
Posted at 9:33 PM, Aug 04, 2023

Biden administration cabinet members received an email on Friday outlining plans to "aggressively" bring federal employees back into offices for work more often by this fall, Axios reported. 

According to the email obtained by the outlet, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients wrote, "We are returning to in-person work because it is critical to the well-being of our teams and will enable us to deliver better results for the American people."

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According to the report, the email was sent to all cabinet members, where Zients wrote, "As we look towards the fall, and with the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, your agencies will be implementing increases in the amount of in-person work for your team. This is a priority of the President, and I am looking to each of you to aggressively execute this shift in September and October."

In March Pew Research released a reportoutlining data that showed around one-third of U.S. workers who were allowed to work from home chose to work remotely 100% of the time. 

Data showed that many either chose to work remote all of the time, or preferred a hybrid model, only working in the office some of the time. 

Around 63% of workers reported that their employer required them to work in person a certain number of days per week or month. 

A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office from July said the federal government owns more than 500 million square feet of office space, costing billions of dollars each year. 

The report found that 17 out of 24 federal agencies used about 25 percent or less of the capacity of their headquarters buildings.