Veterans

‘Tis the Season: Filing EEO-1 and VETS-4212 Reports

July 15, 2016 by Michael Pati

The season for filing EEO-1 and VETS-4212 reports is upon us. The filing year for EEO-1 reporting opened July 1, and the electronic filing system is expected to open this month. The filing year for VETS-4212 reporting begins August 1, and the electronic filing system is expected to open in early August.

In addition, it is important to remember that the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) recently announced that the threshold requiring federal contractors to file VETS-4212 reports has been increased from $100,000 to $150,000, and the change will be in effect for the 2016 filing year. As such, if your organization does not meet the contract threshold, then you are not required to file VETS-4212 reports.

Additional reminders:

EEO-1: Employment data must be pulled from any pay period between July 1 to September 30, 2016.
VETS-4212: Employment data must be pulled from any pay period between July 1 to August 31, 2016. New Hire data must be pulled for the 12-month period preceding the ending date of the selected payroll period.

Biddle Consulting Group is here to help. If you are interested in learning more, or need assistance filing EEO-1 and VETS-4212 reports, please send an email to staff@biddle.com or call (800) 999-0438.

In addition, on July 14, 2016, Biddle offered a free webinar to review the EEO-1 reporting requirements. The fully-recorded webinar will be available for download soon. BCGi Platinum members may download the webinar with their annual subscription ($299).

New Hiring Benchmark for Protected Veterans

June 21, 2016 by Dao Nguyen

On June 15, 2016, the OFCCP published the 2016 Annual Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) Benchmark on its website. The new hiring benchmark – now at 6.9% – replaces the previous benchmark of 7.0% for protected veterans in Affirmative Action Plans. The benchmark is based on Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released on March 4, 2016 and is also effective as of the BLS release date.

The OFCCP explained that Federal contractors who have adopted the previous year’s national benchmark of 7.0% after March 4, 2016, but prior to the June 15 announcement, may keep their benchmark at 7.0%. Moving forward, the effective date for the Annual VEVRAA Benchmark will match the date that BLS publishes the data from which the OFCCP calculates the Annual VEVRAA Benchmark – around the beginning of March.

In other words:

AAPs that begin before March 4, 2016 should use the previous benchmark of 7.0%.
AAPs that begin on March 4, 2016 or later, and have not yet been completed, should adopt the new 6.9% benchmark.
AAPs that begin on March 4, 2016 or later, and were completed before June 15, 2016, may use the 7.0% benchmark.

For Federal contractors who choose to calculate their own hiring benchmark using the OFCCP’s five-factor method, national and state information has also been updated in the VEVRAA Benchmark Database located at https://ofccp.dol-esa.gov/errd/VEVRAA.jsp.

For more information about VEVRAA requirements, please visit http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/vevraa.htm.

New Veterans.gov Website Offers Resources to Employers and Veteran Job Seekers

May 12, 2016 by Dao Nguyen

The U.S. Department of Labor recently launched Veterans.gov, a new website intended to serve as a “one-stop shop” to bring together employers’ outreach efforts and veteran job seekers. This new site offers a variety of resources to employers, such as links to:

Post job openings to veterans.gov, at no cost, either through state job banks or listings that are fed daily from the employer’s website
Connect with regional employer outreach specialists who can share local resources
A free veterans hiring toolkit, “America’s Heroes at Work,” to assist with developing and enhancing the employer’s hiring initiative for veterans

Resources for job seekers include:

Access to online job listings
Connect with one-on-one assistance in the nearly 2,500 American Job Centers located conveniently in communities around the country
Assistance exploring career paths by industry, similarity to military careers, or keyword search
Help locating approved local training programs, colleges and universities

It should also be noted that this new site should not be confused with Vets.gov, which is the Veterans Affairs Department’s portal for various VA-hosted sites such as disability and education benefits.

For more information, please visit Veterans.gov, or the Labor Department’s announcement here.