OFCCP Update – New Directives, Lower Veterans’ Hiring Benchmark

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The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs issued several items of interest to government contractors and subcontractors this month. These include the following:

  • Directive 2020-02 to increase the efficiency of compliance evaluations.
  • Directive 2020-03 to establish a mediation program intended to resolve findings of discrimination prior to referral to the Office of the Solicitor for enforcement.
  • Directive 2020-04 to provide a Protocol for the Ombuds Service, which was originally implemented to facilitate the fair and equitable resolution of certain contractor concerns.

Updating the hiring benchmark for protected veterans to 5.7%, based on recently-released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Under revised Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act regulations issued in 2014, covered government (sub)contractors must set a veterans’ hiring benchmark for each of their establishments, either by using the OFCCP’s annual benchmark as set forth in its VEVRAA Benchmark Database, or by developing their own individualized benchmarks. The current 5.7% figure represents a slight decrease from the previous year’s 5.9% benchmark.