Federal contractors who utilized America’s Job Bank to fulfill their mandatory job posting requirements under the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act should retrieve those records now, advises the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The Job Bank ceased operations on July 1, 2007, and records will be difficult to retrieve, says OFCCP spokesperson Lynn Clements.

The job posting records are examined in OFCCP audits for evidence of the federal contractor’s compliance with the law. In a webinar presented by Clements and OFCCP Deputy Director David Frank, contractors were advised to go to www.jobbankinfo.org or e-mail ajb@labor.state.ny.us to retrieve their job posting records. Both Frank and Clements urged contractors not to wait until a scheduled audit to attempt to get the records since they may not be available in the near future.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has issued a policy directive for federal contractors on the use of electronic recordkeeping systems to comply with its record retention regulations. The guidance also covers the destruction of paper originals of personnel or employment records that are otherwise preserved in an electronic format.

The OFCCP record retention provisions contain language similar to that found in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's regulations which addressed whether electronic recordkeeping would satisfy the recordkeeping requirements under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act in an informal discussion letter. The EEOC discussion letter states that nothing in the covered laws required the preservation of records in paper, rather than electronic format.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has unveiled two initiatives aimed at promoting the hiring of veterans and protecting the rights of applicants with disabilities: The Good Faith Initiative for Veterans Employment (G-FIVE) and Ensuring the Accessibility of Online Application Systems.

The G-Five initiative reaffirms OFCCP's commitment to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act; recognizes companies' "best practices" for the employment and advancement of veterans; creates an incentive for federal contractors and subcontractors to increase their employment of and affirmative action for covered veterans; and strengthens partnerships between OFCCP and other agencies and veterans groups.

The Ensuring the Accessibility of Online Application Systems initiative is designed to ensure that federal contractors and subcontractors provide equal opportunity to qualified applicants with disabilities (including disabled veterans) to compete for jobs when using an online application system. Electronic job application systems must be accessible to and usable by applicants who have disabilities, or the contractor must provide a reasonable accommodation that allows an equal opportunity to compete for a job.

Until the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs issues its final rules, federal contractors may use the new EEO-1 Report form in preparing their affirmative action plans, the agency says.

OFCCP says it recognizes that contractors will need to begin collecting data under the new race and ethnicity standards before they are able to use such data in their AAPs and other records produced during compliance evaluations: “Accordingly, until final rules and guidance are provided by OFCCP, as a matter of enforcement discretion, the agency will not cite a contractor for non-compliance solely because it utilizes the race and ethnic categories required by the revised EEO-1 Report when preparing its AAP. Contractors also are permitted to prepare their AAP using the racial and ethnic categories provided under OFCCP's current regulations.”

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has issued a new directive to establish field enforcement guidance for evaluating the use of race and ethnicity categories in the affirmative action programs prepared by federal contractors. The directive details the OFCCP's enforcement policy announced last year that until its final rules and guidance are issued, it will not cite a contractor for non-compliance solely because the contractor utilizes the race and ethnic categories required by the revised EEO-1 Report when the contractor prepares its AAP.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has added four new frequently asked questions to its website regarding review of contractor compensation practices. The answers clarify the agency’s revised procedures for reviewing compensation data during a compliance evaluation, including the analysis it will use to discover class-wide salary disparities of a systemic nature.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has updated its Frequently Asked Questions webpage regarding the agency’s internet applicant regulations. Eight of the 12 facts concern covered employer recordkeeping, including records to be kept if the employer contracts with an employment agency, maintaining resumes on an external resume database, and whether contractors can ask recruiting firms to keep records required by the Internet Applicant Final Rule.

Federal contractors who have been using America’s Job Bank to fulfill their job listing requirements under the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act are advised by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs that they will no longer be able to use the AJB as of July 1, and must pursue other affirmative steps to hire qualified veterans.

“We appreciate that transitioning to a news job listing mechanism may cause difficulties for contractors posting jobs….Accordingly, until further guidance is provided by OFCCP, the agency, as a matter of enforcement discretion, will not cite a contractor for non-compliance solely because it has failed to list all of its employment openings with the appropriate employment service delivery system or the appropriate local employment service office, provided that it continues to make good faith efforts to recruit and employ qualified covered veterans,” the OFCCP says.