OFCCP Issues Notice to Federal Contractors on the Use of the 2006-2010 Census EEO Tabulation

One of the questions that many federal contractors and subcontractors have been asking is "When is the OFCCP going to require us to use updated census information for calculating availability in affirmative action plans (AAPs)?"  The OFCCP has now answered that question with their announcement on May 15, 2013 that federal contractors and subcontractors must use the new information to develop AAPs that begin on or after January 1, 2014.

On November 29, 2012 the Census Bureau released the 2006-2010 EEO Tabulation (2010 EEO Tab). The OFCCP has announced that contractors will be permitted to continue to use the Census 2000 Special EEO File information for the development of 2013 AAPs; however, contractors must use the 2010 EEO Tab information to develop AAPs that begin on or after January 1, 2014. For more about this latest OFCCP notice please click on this link.

While the new census data was released to the public on November 29, it is cumbersome to download, and the Census Bureau has not provided an easily usable tool for accessing this data. This may be one of the reasons that the OFCCP has delayed any requirement to use the new census data until 2014. (For more information on the new census data, see our earlier blog posting).

The release of the new census information is significant because the census information is used in the development of an availability analysis for every affirmative action plan. The purpose of the availability analysis is to show the percentage of qualified minorities and females in various job categories who are available in the areas where a federal contractor recruits for open positions. The information from the availability analysis is then compared to the percentage of minorities and females in a contractor’s workforce in order to determine the areas within the contractor’s workforce in which goals should be set for adding minorities and females. In order to determine availability, the OFCCP requires contractors to use data from the Census Bureau. Since 2005, contractors had been required to use the Census Bureau’s Census 2000 Special EEO File.   Going forward, federal contractors now have new census data to use in the development of their availablility analyses.