In June, The Institute for Workplace Equality sent a letter to the Department of Labor (DOL) requesting that the filing period for VETS coincide with the EEO-1’s March 2018 filing. The Institute pointed out that this would allow contractors to use the same data pull for the reports, just as they previously did. The DOL responded to the letter providing the following clarifications.
Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) mentioned that federal contractors can align the data collection periods for their VETS-4212 report to a December 31 snapshot, keeping in-line with EEO-1 data collection. However, the filing deadline will remain August 1 – September 30 and cannot align with the EEO-1 filing deadline of March 31. In the future, we may see a revision to VETS’ regulations. However, any revisions have to be made through a formal notice and comment rulemaking process, which is not possible for the 2017 period. Therefore, nothing changes for 2017 VETS-4212 reporting. However, what does it mean for 2018 reports:
Data collection: Contractors have the option of aligning their VETS-4212 and EEO-1 data by pulling a December 31, 2017 snapshot. Aligning the data collection date for VETS-4212 and EEO-1 reports can reduce the data collection and reporting burden for contractors.
Filing Deadline: Using a December 31, 2017 snapshot [and January 1 – December 31, 2017 hires data], the 2018 VETS-4212 report would be filed during the August 1 – September 30 filing period.
If you have specific questions on how this might affect your 2017 VETS-4212 filing, please do not hesitate to reach out to your consultant at DCI.
By Vinaya Sakpal, Associate Consultant, and Rachel Monroe, HR Analyst, at DCI Consulting Group