OFCCP Recruiting Requirements for Federal Contractors

OFCCP recruiting requirements for federal contractors still exist after the January 2025 revocation of Executive Order 11246, but they now rest entirely on two statutes: the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act. In practice, that means you must still list most job openings with state workforce agencies, conduct active outreach to protected veterans and individuals with disabilities, invite applicants to self-identify, measure results against a 7 percent disability utilization goal and a veteran hiring benchmark, and maintain written affirmative action programs for both groups. What is gone is the race- and sex-based affirmative action framework that lived under EO 11246.

What Survived and What Was Revoked

On January 21, 2025, Executive Order 14173 revoked EO 11246 and its race- and sex-based affirmative action requirements for federal contractors.¹ The Department of Labor has halted enforcement of the EO 11246 regulations at 41 CFR Parts 60-1 and 60-2 and proposed rescinding them formally.²

VEVRAA and Section 503 are different animals. Both are statutes, so a president cannot revoke them alone, and the Department of Labor has explicitly reminded contractors that both remain in full effect along with their implementing regulations.³ Contractors who stop complying because they heard “OFCCP requirements were eliminated” are walking into enforcement that OFCCP has resumed.

Listing Job Openings with State Workforce Agencies

Under VEVRAA’s equal opportunity clause at 41 CFR 60-300.5, you must list job openings with the state workforce agency serving the location of the position. The listing has to happen when recruitment begins for each opening, and it must be in a format the state agency can integrate so it can give priority referral to protected veterans.⁴ You also have to identify yourself to the state agency as a federal contractor so its system flags your postings for veteran priority.

Three categories are exempt:

Executive and top management positions.
Positions the contractor will fill from within its own organization.
Positions lasting three days or less.

Everything else goes to the state job bank. This is one of the easiest requirements to verify in an audit, so cutting corners is a bad trade.

Targeted Outreach to Veterans and People with Disabilities

Passive job postings do not satisfy either statute. The regulations at 41 CFR 60-300.44(f) require active outreach to sources likely to produce protected veteran candidates: VA regional offices, Veterans’ Employment Representatives at state workforce agencies, veteran service organizations, college veteran advisors, and Department of Defense transition programs.⁵ Section 503 imposes parallel outreach duties for candidates with disabilities, including relationships with vocational rehabilitation agencies and disability-focused placement organizations.

Documentation is where most contractors slip. You must keep records of outreach activities for three years and conduct an annual review of whether those activities actually produced qualified applicants and hires. If a partner is not generating results, you cannot keep doing the same thing. The regulation requires you to implement alternative outreach.⁵ The point is to show a recruitment strategy that changes with evidence.

Inviting Applicants to Self-Identify

Contractors must invite applicants to voluntarily self-identify as protected veterans and as individuals with disabilities at two points: pre-offer and post-offer. For disability self-identification, use the OMB-approved Form CC-305, the Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability form.⁶ You cannot alter the text or format except for the “For Employer Use Only” section.

The invitation has to make clear that responding is voluntary, that responses are confidential, and that the information will not be used in hiring decisions. Store the demographic data separately from personnel and application files. That separation is a regulatory requirement, not just a best practice, and auditors check it.

For veterans, the invitation must ask specifically about the VEVRAA protected categories: disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans. That data feeds the hiring benchmark analysis.

The 7 Percent Disability Utilization Goal

Section 503 requires you to compare your workforce representation of people with disabilities against a 7 percent utilization goal.⁷ The comparison happens for each job group, or for the entire workforce if you have 100 or fewer employees. Falling below the goal is not, by itself, a finding of discrimination. It does trigger a duty to look for barriers in your recruiting or hiring process and to take specific action.

OFCCP has stated that 7 percent is not a quota or a ceiling.⁷ It is a benchmark. If you are under it, expect to document what you are changing and why.

The VEVRAA Veteran Hiring Benchmark

VEVRAA requires an annual hiring benchmark for protected veterans. You can adopt the national percentage published by OFCCP or build your own using local veteran labor market data. The current national benchmark is 5.1 percent, effective July 30, 2025.⁸

The benchmark measures the share of your total hires during the plan year who are protected veterans. Missing it is not a violation on its own, but it obligates you to examine the recruiting pipeline and adjust. If you set your own number instead of using the national figure, document the methodology and data sources.

Written Affirmative Action Programs

Even with EO 11246 gone, you must still develop and maintain written affirmative action programs for veterans under VEVRAA and for individuals with disabilities under Section 503. OFCCP confirmed in early 2026 that these AAP obligations continue in full, including the collection of self-identification data used to track applicant and hire demographics.³

A VEVRAA AAP must include the annual hiring benchmark, documentation of outreach and its effectiveness, and data on protected veteran applicants and hires. A Section 503 AAP must include the utilization analysis against the 7 percent goal, an assessment of problem areas, and action-oriented programs to address any shortfalls. Both are updated annually.

OFCCP’s online AAP certification portal has remained closed while the agency revises its processes.³ The closed portal does not excuse you from preparing the programs. If OFCCP opens a complaint investigation, you will be asked to produce a current AAP.

Records You Have to Keep

VEVRAA and Section 503 require you to preserve personnel and employment records for at least two years from the date the record was created or the personnel action was taken, whichever is later. Contractors with fewer than 150 employees may keep records for one year.⁹ The definition of a record is broad: applications, resumes, interview notes, test results, job advertisements, reasonable accommodation requests, and any expression of interest submitted through an applicant tracking system or online portal.

Electronic recordkeeping has extra layers. For an internal resume database, you must retain a record of each resume added, when it was added, the positions the database was searched for, the search criteria, and the date of each search. For external databases, the same tracking applies, plus you must retain the resumes of anyone who met basic qualifications and was considered. These rules exist so OFCCP can reconstruct your process during an evaluation.

If a compliance evaluation is initiated, preserve all relevant records until OFCCP makes a final disposition, even past the normal retention period. Destroying records after notice of an audit is a serious compliance failure.

Where Race- and Sex-Conscious Recruiting Now Sits

This is the boundary that catches contractors off guard. EO 14173 replaced the old affirmative action framework with a certification: every contract and grant award must include a term that the contractor does not operate DEI programs that violate federal anti-discrimination laws, and that certification is treated as material under the False Claims Act.¹ A follow-up executive order issued in March 2026 defines “racially discriminatory DEI activities” to include disparate treatment based on race or ethnicity in recruiting, hiring, promotions, vendor agreements, and program participation such as mentoring and leadership development.¹⁰

EO 14173 explicitly exempts preferences for veterans and persons protected by the Randolph-Sheppard Act.¹ Your VEVRAA and Section 503 outreach is not prohibited DEI activity. Recruiting programs that target candidates based on race, ethnicity, or sex now carry genuine legal risk, and OFCCP has not yet issued detailed guidance drawing the line between broad outreach and prohibited preferences.

Enforcement and What Non-Compliance Costs

OFCCP administratively closed all pending compliance reviews from the November 2024 scheduling list because those reviews were entangled with EO 11246 analysis.³ Section 503 and VEVRAA complaint processing has resumed, and complaints filed during the earlier pause are being handled normally.

When a compliance evaluation occurs, it typically opens with a Corporate Scheduling Announcement Letter as a courtesy, then a formal Scheduling Letter that starts the review. You generally have 30 days from the Scheduling Letter to submit your AAP and supporting documentation. OFCCP can also open reviews based on individual complaints without going through the scheduling list.

If OFCCP finds violations, it first pursues conciliation, a negotiated agreement that can require back pay and make-whole relief for affected workers or applicants.¹¹ If conciliation fails, the case can go to the Solicitor of Labor for litigation, or OFCCP can recommend debarment, which bars you from future government contracts. Those tools exist under VEVRAA and Section 503 independently and were not touched by the revocation of EO 11246.

1
Federal Register. Executive Order 14173
2
Federal Register. Rescission of Executive Order 11246 Implementing Regulations
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
4
eCFR. 41 CFR 60-300.5 – Equal Opportunity Clause
5
eCFR. 41 CFR Part 60-300, Subpart C – Section 60-300.44
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability Form
7
eCFR. 41 CFR 60-741.45 – Utilization Goals
8
U.S. Department of Labor. VEVRAA Hiring Benchmark
9
eCFR. 41 CFR 60-1.12 – Record Retention
10
The White House. Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Conciliation Agreements