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# FDA to Allow Some Teleworking: AP
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/fda-to-allow-some-teleworking-ap/
- Published: 2025-04-10T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T14:57:28.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5158985

FDA has decided to allow some product review staff and supervisors to resume working from home at least two days a week, the Associated Press reports in a [story](https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2025/04/fda-reverses-course-on-telework-after-layoffs-and-resignations-threaten-basic-operations/?ref=fdaweb.com) based on conversations with three anonymous agency staffers. The story says an email on the subject was sent on 4/8 to some of FDA’s hundreds of drug reviewers, with a similar policy reportedly communicated in some way to reviewers who handle vaccines, biologics, medical devices, and tobacco products.

“It’s the latest example of the Trump administration’s chaotic approach to overhauling the federal health workforce, which has included firings, a scramble to rehire some employees, and then additional layoffs last week of an estimated 3,400 staffers, or more than 15% of the agency’s workforce,” AP says.

The story says a spokesperson for HHS said FDA was returning to “pre-Covid telework arrangements for reviewers, whose read and write work output is tracked in 15-minute increments to ensure productivity and accountability.”

The article notes that while many agencies switched to telework during the Covid-19 pandemic, FDA started with it a decade earlier, seeing such flexibility as a competitive perk in recruiting employees who could often earn more money working in industry.

AP raises the possibility that with so many staff cuts, FDA funding could drop so much that it would short-circuit the user fee system. It notes that the various user fee program agreements with regulated industries stipulate that if the agency’s congressional funding falls below set levels, companies are no longer required to pay the user fees and, in some cases, could claw back their money. Such threshold requirements are designed to ensure that Congress continues funding the agency, rather than relying entirely on the private sector, the news service says.

Negotiations for the next iteration of user fee agreements should begin later this year, it says.