Furloughed told to return to work

Federal workers furloughed by the government shutdown are being told to return to work Thursday.

After the House approved a Senate measure to resume funding government agencies and raise the debt ceiling, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Sylvia Burwell issued a statement effectively reopening the federal government.

In the notice, she referred workers to the website run by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is responsible for setting policies for federal employees.

"Now that the bill has passed the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, the president plans to sign it tonight and employees should expect to return to work in the morning,” she said in a statement late Wednesday evening. “Employees should be checking the news and OPM's website for further updates.”

Many of the hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed during the 16-day shutdown have been reliant on news reports and public statements from their agencies to learn about the status of government funding.

The OMB had advised agencies against relying on mobile devices or work emails to try and reach employees to tell them when they would need to come back to work. Some federal workers have been barred from using their government-issued devices during the shutdown, and some had to hand them in as funding ran out.