by Chad Bayse
The Hill
America still has about 10 million fewer jobs than it did before COVID-19. In order to help revive jobs across the country, the time has come to move federal government employees from Washington, D.C., capital region to other parts of the country.
Despite the movement towards telework, a disproportionality large amount of the federal workforce remains in the Washington, D.C. area. Approximately 1 in 6 of the over 2 million civilian full-time federal employees live in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, which includes Northern Virginia, and suburban Maryland.
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, federal agencies had already offered telecommuting options to their employees, with 40 percent of federal employees already eligible for telework.