Labor Department Imposes Disability Hiring Quotas, Even in Divisions that Don’t Get Federal Contracts
25th September 2013
Time to abandon pretense that the Federal government’s power is somehow limited.
The Obama Labor Department has just finalized rules that will effectively require businesses that get federal contracts to adopt a 7 percent hiring quota for the disabled. Much of the American workforce is employed by a federal contractor, since most large companies have federal contracts. So this will affect much of the economy, and impose massive new costs on American business.
Disturbingly, the new rules require a 7 percent quota not just for the division of the company that receives a federal contract, but for the company as a whole. And they require that the 7 percent quota be met not just for the company as a whole, but also in each line of business in the company. That means they effectively must be met even in job categories where the number of disabled people is lower than average, either because the qualified labor pool is disproportionately able-bodied (like those that require hard physical labor) or because the job is not compatible with certain mental or psychological impediments that qualify as disabilities.