Affirmative Action Plan Availability Statistics

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One of the requirements of an affirmative action plan is determining availability of women or qualified minorities for jobs in the contractor's workforce. Availability is defined as "an estimate of the number of women or qualified minorities available for employment in a given job group, indicated as a percentage of all qualified persons available for employment in the job group." 41 CFR 60-2.14 (a). "The purpose of the availability determination is to establish a benchmark against which the demographic composition of the contractor's incumbent workforce can be compared in order to determine whether barriers to equal employment opportunity may exist within particular job groups."

OFCCP regulations further provide that "[t]he contractor must use the most current and discrete statistical information available to derive availability figures." 41 CFR 60-2.14 (d). "Examples of such information include census data, data from local job service offices, and data from colleges or other training institutions." Contractors frequently use U.S. Census Bureau data to determine availability requirements for their affirmative action plan and OFCCP relies on Census data to assess whether a contractor's availability determination is reasonable.

The Census Bureau's Web site presents data on race and ethnicity, cross-tabulated by other variables such as detailed occupations, occupational groups, gender, worksite geography, residence geography, education, age, and industry to determine availability.

In addition, at the request of a Federal Consortium consisting of OFCCP, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Justice, and the Office of Personnel Management, the Census Bureau constructed the Census 2000 Special EEO File, which contains information on 472 occupations. The Census 2000 Special EEO File data is available under the "Access to Data from the Special EEO Tabulation" link on the Census Bureau's website. OFCCP will begin to use data from the Census 2000 Special EEO File to assess the reasonableness of the contractor's availability determinations beginning with AAP years that commence on or after January 1, 2005.

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James Gutierrez is expert as affirmative action consultant. Human resource professionals like to receive his affirmative action plan news.

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