Thousands of KC-area federal workers get 5-day Christmas weekend. Here’s why
Up to 28,000 workers in the Kansas City area will get a five-day weekend for Christmas because of a presidential executive order signed Thursday.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring Wednesday, Dec. 24, and Friday, Dec. 26, federal holidays in 2025. Since government workers already get Dec. 25 off, this extends the Christmas holiday to five consecutive days.
According to the order, some agencies may need to remain open for “reasons of national security, defense, or other public need.”
This practice is fairly common, according to reporting from the Federal News Network. Last year, former president Joe Biden gave federal workers Christmas Eve off.
The Kansas City metropolitan area has 28,200 federal workers, according to the most recent numbers available, which are September preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In both Kansas and Missouri, the biggest federal employer is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs eight hospitals across the two states, according to most recent data from the Office of Personnel Management.
In Missouri, the second-largest agency is the Department of the Treasury, which operates the Internal Revenue Service. In Kansas, the Department of Agriculture is the second largest.
