About the Paper

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Paper that directly addresses the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) topic areas of “Improving Equal Employment Opportunities for Targeted Populations” and “Innovative Approaches to Evaluating the Impact of Department of Labor Worker Protection Programs and Policies Using Existing Administrative or Other Data” through each of its three main objectives. Multiple meetings with Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) staff helped to shape and refine the components of this study to best address the current needs of OFCCP, employers, and individuals with disabilities. The project documents the trends in the probability of a violation, bases of violations, and instances of discrimination, as well as identify employer characteristics that are predictive of noncompliance. Moreover, this analysis sheds light on the initial impact of the new Section 503 regulations on the trends in violations and also the predictors of compliance. With the new regulations not fully in effect until March of 2015, this project provides the American public, employers, and program administrators with increased awareness of the prevalence and predictors of disability violations. This project also highlights which workplace policies and practices contribute to federal contractors meeting their goals around disability employment and will identify issues related to the actual implementation of Section 503 from the employer’s perspective.

Research Questions

• The survey will focus on how employers are responding to the additional requirements under the new Section 503 regulations guided by the following four research questions.
• What approaches to disability data collection and analysis are employers using?
• What are response rates and self-identification rates for these data collections?
• What changes in key policies and practices were made as a result of changes to Section 503 regulations, particularly those designed to increase the talent pipeline of people with disabilities and increase the self-identification of individuals with disabilities?
• What were challenges associated with implementing the recent 503 regulations?

Key Takeaways

• Respondents to this survey of federal contractors report that their organizations have been setting targets/goals around the recruitment, hiring, retention and advancement of people with disabilities.
• Respondents indicated they were collecting data to understand progress toward their targets/goals including the 7% utilization goal, with a small proportion already meeting that goal.
• Despite challenges with implementation, contractors are responding to the regulatory changes by implementing disability inclusive policies and practices, and many believe that these efforts will increase the employment of individuals with disabilities in their organizations – the ultimate objective of these Section 503 regulations.
• There has been substantial change in the probability of a contractor review ending in a disability violation following the recent Section 503 regulations.

Citation

Enayati, H., von Schrader, S. (2020). Initial Impact of Section 503 Rules: Understanding Good Employer Practices and the Trends in Disability Violations Among Federal Contractors. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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This study was part of CEO’s Labor Research and Evaluation Grants, and was produced outside of CEO’s standard research development process.