Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)

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Small Contractor Affirmative Action Program(AAP) Job Group Availability Determinations

Federal contractors are required to establish AAP job groups and compare their employment of minorities and women within those job groups to the availability of minorities and women who are "available" for employment. Job groups are jobs that are grouped based on three factors: 1) similar wages; 2) similar job duties and responsibilities; and 3) similar opportunities for training, promotion, transfer, and other employment benefits. Each job title in an establishment should be placed into a job group. These are called "AAP Job Groups."

Smaller contractors (contractors with fewer than 150 employees), however, may formulate their AAP job groups according to EEO-1 job categories. A description of and occupation examples in each of the nine EEO-1 job categories are available on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's website.

In order to make the job group-availability comparison, federal contractors must conduct availability analyses to determine the percentage of women and minorities who have the skills required to perform the jobs within the each job group. The purpose of the availability analyses is to estimate the percentage of minorities and women among those qualified for employment for each job group. Availability involves calculation of minorities and women who are "available" to work in the job from both external sources (i.e., hired from outside the company) and internal sources (e.g., transfer or promotion of existing employee in the company).

For calculating "external" availability, you want to consider who is qualified for the job within "the reasonable recruitment area" for that job. The "reasonable recruitment area" represents the area from which a contractor usually seeks or reasonably could seek workers for a particular job group. The reasonable recruitment area availability may be determined using the Total Civilian Labor Force data (residence geography data) reported in the Census 2000 Data Tool on the Census Bureau website. We provide detailed instructions below on how to obtain this Census data.

Please note that the regulation 41 CFR 60-2.14(d) require contractors to use the most current and discrete statistical data available in determining availability estimates. Census data is one example of an appropriate source of statistical information. Other sources include data from local job service offices and data from colleges or other training institutions.

Internal availability involves the percentage of minorities and women inside a contractor's workforce who are considered promotable, transferable and trainable for a particular job group. This means the percentage of minorities and women who are in "feeder" jobs or job groups who are (at the start of the AAP year), or who will become (during the AAP year) promotable or transferable from a current job or job group into another job group. This factor also requires an assessment of the number of employees who could, with appropriate training (that a contractor is reasonably able to provide), become promotable or transferable during the AAP year.

OFCCP recommends weighting the external percentage factor and the internal percentage factor by historical usage patterns to reflect the proportion of incumbents hired or to be hired from external sources and the proportion from internal sources. For example, in entry job groups, you may always hire from outside. The external factor will therefore become the entire availability. For other job groups, you may have hired from the outside 10% of the time over the last several years, but promoted from the inside 90% of the time. Each of your availability factors should then be weighted accordingly i.e., in our example the external percentage is multiplied by 10% and added to the internal percentage after it has been multiplied by 90% to come up with a final availability percentage.

Small contractors that use the nine EEO-1 job categories as their job groups, may wish to use the Census 2000 "EEO-1 Job Categories" link to determine their external availability estimates. This link can be accessed via the Census 2000 Data Tool. At the top of the page are several links under the heading "Choose the Tables You Want To Display." Simply click the fifth circle to select "Employment by EEO-1 Job Categories".

Go to the second part of the page to Select Geography. The screen defaults to "Residence: Data based on where people live." This category presents civilian labor force data. Click "Next" at the bottom of the page.

A new screen appears where you are directed to select one of the following levels of geography (U.S. Total; States; Metropolitan Areas; Counties; and Places 50,000+). The geographic area you select must be based on the reasonable recruiting area for the AAP job group under consideration. Small contractors typically use the local area, a metropolitan area, a county or sometimes the State depending on the reasonable recruiting area for the specific job group. Make the selection that is most appropriate for the job group.

For example, if you select the "Metropolitan Areas" and then click "Next", you will see a list of metropolitan areas. Select the one for your area and then click "Next" again.

Once the appropriate EEO-1 Job Category is selected, go to the "Select Race Categories To Display" and click the second circle indicating "Show White, Non-Hispanic/All Others". After you have made your selection, click "Display Table" at the bottom of the screen.

The new screen displays two tables. The top table displays population data and the bottom displays percentages . Minority availability estimates may be determined using the percentages reported for All others, including Hispanics. Female estimates are displayed on the table.

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