BALTIMORE, Md. — It'll be back in the office for federal workers.
On the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order to send federal employees to work in person five days a week.
A statement on the White House website says in part, "Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall... terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person...on a full-time basis."
This is set to affect Maryland, with over 140,000 federal civilian workers in the state, according to the Congressional Research Service.
About 10% of all federal employees work remotely.
WMAR-2 News spoke with one of those employees working in Baltimore.
She declined to show her face or reveal her name.
"For me, working from home I have the opportunity to start early. I have the opportunity to work a little bit later. And I won't have that flexibility going into the office," she said.
She shares the same worry as many others on social media, that traffic will get worse as federal employees head to work in person.
"I commute from Baltimore to DC. So, for me, it's a matter of catching the MARC train and the unpredictability of that. So I can only imagine how it's going to impact the DC transit system."
University of Baltimore Professor John Willis told WMAR-2 News this will hurt Maryland.
"I expect a lot of chaos and conflict," Willis said, "It'll not only have an impact on the individuals who have to accommodate whatever orders come down, but I think it will adversely affect the actual government service to the public."
The Executive Order is paired with a move to implement a hiring freeze on federal jobs.
Willis called that irrational.
"Say 10 percent of the people working at home quit and you can't hire them back, they're going to diminish the ability of services for whatever agency they're working in...My advice to the administration is focus on governing, not on politics."
As of right now, this order does not apply to workers at the Social Security Administration.
Their contract with the American Federation of Government Employees protects the telework structure of many job positions with the agency runs through 2029.
