New Report: Federal Telework Rates in Line with Private Sector

The Office of Management and Budget released 2,989 pages of telework data last week, including agency-specific information about telework use, policies and collective bargaining agreements.

Here are some highlights that counter false claims that federal employees don’t come into work.

• 54 percent of all federal civilian employees work on-site, full-time and never telework.
• The rest, 46 percent, are eligible for telework part of each pay period, and together they spend 61.2 percent of their regular working hours in-person and on-site.
• Only 228,000 employees work in remote positions with no in-person work necessary, or 10 percent of the entire federal workforce.

“These figures demonstrate that the Federal workforce is generally in line with the rates of on-site work performed across all sectors in the economy, as demonstrated by independent analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” OMB wrote.

It also shows that across government, on average, agencies have surpassed OMB’s goal that teleworkers spend at least half of their time at the workplace.

NTEU continues to work vigorously on Capitol Hill and at bargaining tables to protect our negotiated telework programs.