The CEO of JPMorgan Chase has a tough message for federal employees

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon has a major gripe: how often federal employees work in person in the nation’s capital.

During an appearance at the Atlantic Festival in Washington, DC last week, Dimon said he was shocked by the number of federal employees working remotely and that he would “make Washington, DC, go back to work . .”

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“I can’t believe when I come here, the empty buildings,” Dimon said. “The people (who) work for you won’t go to the office anymore. That bothers me. I don’t allow that at JP (Morgan Chase).”

During the 2020 Covid pandemic, many federal agencies adopted hybrid/remote work schedules to slow the spread of the virus. As of May of this year, about 50 percent of federal workers are in roles that are not eligible for telecommuting, according to a recent report from the US Office of Management and Budget. Also, federal employees in remote-friendly positions spent about 60 percent of their regular work hours working in-person at offices.

Jamie Dimon vs. remote work

Dimon has made it clear several times that he is not a fan of remote work. After allowing Chase employees to work remotely in the early months of the pandemic, the bank pushed for a return to the office in September 2020, which was eventually delayed due to another Covid outbreak.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., during a Bloomberg Television interview on the sidelines of the JPMorgan Tech Stars Leadership Forum in London on Oct. 2, 2023.

Bloomberg/Getty Images

By May 2021, Dimon told The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council that he was “done” with Zoom meetings and that he was aiming for workers to return to the office in the next few months, despite concerns about commuting.

“We want people to go back to work, and my view is that sometime in September, October will look exactly like it did before,” Dimon told The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council. “And everybody’s going to be happy about it, and yeah, the commute, you know people don’t like the commute, so what.”

Chase subsequently imposed a mandate (which remains in effect) in April 2023 that allows employees to work at least three days a week in the office, but states that CEOs are expected to work in the office five days a week. After facing backlash over the mandate, Dimon argued during a July 2023 interview with The Economist that if any of his employees have a problem going to work every day, they can find another job.

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“I totally understand why someone doesn’t want to commute an hour and a half every day, I totally get it,” Dimon said in an interview with The Economist. “It doesn’t mean he has to have a job here.”

Remote work is increasingly facing the block at several companies in the country. Notably, Amazon sent a memo to its employees on September 16 claiming that by January 5, 2025, teams would return to working in offices five days a week.

As telecommuting continues to take off, many employees across the country are claiming that working from home makes them more productive at work. According to a recent USA Today survey, only 16 percent of white-collar workers said they were more productive working in the office, compared to 46 percent who said they were more productive working from home.

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