SAN RAMON, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/30/13 -- eQuest today announced that it has completed a cursory review of the recently released Unified Budget for Fiscal Year 2013. The report makes it clear that the OFCCP is breathing new life into its decades-old rules in ways that can only be described as ambitious and burdensome.

The Unified Agenda signals that OFCCP intends to aggressively implement new rules and regulations affecting federal contractors and subcontractors in the upcoming year. We have already seen two significant new requirements for Federal Contractors in January, 2013 alone.

The new rules will be phased-in -- although two portions have already gone into effect as recently as January 1, and January 18, 2013. In April, according to the Budget approval, the contractor community should see new VEVRAA and section 503 regulations for covered Veterans and people with disabilities.

According to a client alert sent by prestigious law firm, Proskauer, the approved and published budget points directly to 2013 being a historic year for regulatory changes, increased enforcement and exhaustive burden on Federal Contractors.

The alert reads:

Contractors and Subcontractors should expect OFCCP regulatory action to include the following:

1.) Implementation of final rules for individuals with disabilities and covered veterans, including:

• Increased enforcement with respect to hiring, worker retention and data collection
• Increased desk audits, on-site activity, and increased focus on Section 503 and VEVRAA

2.) Implementation of new pay equity data collection tools

3.) Focus on the construction industry

4.) Implementation of "Good Jobs for Everyone"

• OFCCP will place greater emphasis on "meaningful and effective" affirmative action evaluations

5.) New Functional Affirmative Action Program ("FAAP") directive

• Permits contractors to develop Affirmative Action Plans ("AAP") based on business function or business unit rather than contractor establishments
• Contractors are not eligible for FAAP renewal unless two functional units have passed compliance evaluations during the agreement's three-year term

6.) Executive Order 13495 - Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts

• New requirement to offer jobs to predecessor contractor's workers
• Effective January 18, 2013

We would like to thank the Proskauer law firm for the detail in this report. eQuest's Compliance Division will continue to keep its customers up-to-date as new regulations and requirements unfold.

About eQuest

eQuest provides State and Diversity job distribution for hundreds of Federal contractors. It also is the world's dominant and most utilized job posting distribution company. Its primary customer base consists of the majority of the Global Fortune 500. It also provides job deliveries on behalf of the world's largest Applicant Tracking Systems, ERP's, and job boards -- managing thousands of companies through these channels. Present job posting deliveries average 250 million annually. Its Big Data for HR division collects approximately 5 million job board performance statistics weekly -- making eQuest the Nielsen Ratings company of the HR industry. Other products include consulting, OFCCP compliance and audit protection, technology services, data analytics, Interactive media representation, SEO, and various predictive tools. eQuest was established in 1994. eQuest can be reached at www.equest.com.