The U.S. Department of Labor is rolling back requirements for federal contractors that were intended to increase hiring of people with disabilities. (Thinkstock)
A decade-old federal rule designed to increase employment of people with disabilities will soon be no more.
The U.S. Department of Labor is officially putting an end to a 2013 regulation that put pressure on federal contractors to beef up disability employment.
Under the rule finalized by the Obama administration, most federal contractors have been required to work toward a goal of ensuring that at least 7% of workers within each job group in their workforce are people with disabilities.
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The regulation laid out specific steps that contractors had to take related to recruitment, training, record keeping and policy dissemination in order to bolster disability employment. Failure to meet the goal or provide proper documentation that they adequately worked toward the goal could mean losing government contracts.
Now the Labor Department is doing away with the mandate citing concerns that it may amount to a quota. In addition, the agency is ending a requirement that contractors ask applicants and employees to identify their disability. The agency said that this invitation to self-identify is “inconsistent” with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The ADA clearly provides that an employer may not, prior to an offer of employment, make any disability-related inquiries of job applicants, even if that inquiry is related to the job,” the Labor Department said in a final rule this month. “The ADA also clearly provides that, after an employee starts a job, an employer may make disability-related inquiries only if such inquiries are job-related and consistent with business necessity. But, under (the Obama-era rule), contractors must ask applicants and employees about their disability status.”
The Labor Department is also doing away with an expectation that contractors collect data on applicants and hires with disabilities.
Charles-Edouard Catherine with the National Organization on Disability said that the 7% utilization goal and data collection are “essential” to honor the spirit of the ADA.
“This new final rule is another very concerning sign that our community and all the progress that we had accomplished over the past four decades is under threat, and that people with disabilities will once again pay the cost, and have even less employment opportunities,” he said.
The new Labor Department rule will start taking effect Sept. 21.
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