Veteran-Preference Rule to Take Effect
The DOL has overhauled a veterans-hiring law, requiring federal contractors with contracts of $100,000 or more to give preference for almost all available jobs to military personnel when they leave the service. Advertising such positions will cause the most problems.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
For companies doing business with the federal government, the good news is that the regulations implementing the 2002 Jobs for Veterans Act do not dramatically change the terrain.
But that doesn't mean that government contractors aren't going to be scrambling to comply with one coincidental change that has nothing to do with the new regs: where contractors must advertise openings that qualify for veteran preference.
That's because the effective date of the new regulations -- Sept. 7 -- comes just two months after the death of the federal government's America's Job Bank Web site.
"This is the biggest change," says Sonia Chapin, manager of client services for Berkshire Associates Inc., a Columbia, Md.-based human resources consultancy. "The most impact will come from the loss of AJB, which contractors loved because it was one-stop shopping. Now they're going to need to go to the 50 individual states."
The regulations implement the 2002 amendments to a federal veterans-employment-preference law, which expand coverage and require federal contractors to advertise job opportunities.
The new rules required by the Jobs for Veterans Act were designed to overhaul the last major veterans-jobs law -- the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 -- and to prepare federal contractors for the influx of hundreds of thousands of job applicants, who are veterans of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The new law requires that contractors doing business with the federal government give priority status to veterans for almost any job available on contracts of $100,000 that were entered or modified after Dec. 1, 2003.
The only jobs exempted from the new rules are executive or management openings, jobs that will be filled from within or temporary jobs lasting fewer than three days.
Government contracts larger than $25,000 that are older than the Dec. 1, 2003 effective date will continue to follow the rules of the earlier 1974 veterans law.
The new regulations also expand the types of veterans service covered, adding "veterans who, while serving on active duty in the Armed Forces, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded" -- covering veterans of U.S. military actions since Vietnam.
The Jobs for Veterans Act regulations also expands coverage for veterans with disabilities, abolishing the previous system rating the percentage of serious employment or physical disability and replacing it with coverage of any veteran with "service-connected disabilities."
And coverage of "recently separated veterans" was extended from one to three years after discharge or release from active duty.
But Berkshire's Chapin says the biggest change concerning government contractors -- especially those with operations nationwide or in several states -- is their difficulty in meeting the Jobs for Veterans Act's expanded-posting requirements.
The new regulations require contractors to list job openings with the appropriate state workforce job banks or employment offices, or third-party private job banks.
On July 1, the America's Job Bank Web site, created by the government, ceased operation, the apparent victim of cost-cutting. The AJB site had been used by many government contractors to satisfy the public posting of veteran-preference jobs.
At least two private job boards are maneuvering to take the place of the AJB, but in the interim, the
Department of Labor Web site
offers guidance to prospective employers and employees as well as links to state employment office Web sites.
Chapin said the government seems to be trying to accommodate contractors surprised by the change.
Berkshire Associates Inc. reported that, in late June, the OFCCP announced a policy update saying the agency will not cite federal contractors for failing to list all job openings with the proper state or local employment services provided the contractor "continues to make good-faith efforts to recruit and employ qualified covered veterans."
Veterans groups had pressed for the new veterans job preference and training legislation, citing federal labor statistics showing that about 700,000 veterans are unemployed in a given month, with as many as 200,000 new job seekers entering the civilian job market annually as military personnel retire from the service.
Earlier this year the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that during 2005 the unemployment rate of male veterans was 3.7 percent, slightly lower than the 4.4-percent unemployment rate for nonveterans.
But among the 18-to-24 year-old cohort, 17.2 percent were unemployed compared to 10.4 percent of nonveterans. The unemployment rate of female veterans was 5.9 percent, slightly higher than the 5-percent rate for nonveterans.
The new regulations were published Aug. 8 by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs OFCCP, a unit of the Labor Department's Employment Standards Administration that enforces laws that prohibit employment discrimination by federal contractors and monitors contractor compliance with federal equal-employment-opportunities laws.
A copy of the final rule and a list of frequently asked questions are available on
OFCCP's Web site
. Additional information is available at OFCCP's toll-free help line 800-397-6251 or by e-mail at OFCCP-Public@dol.gov.
August 21, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications
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