As increasing number of veterans are expected to return from Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming years, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is promising to reinforce a Vietnam-era law to help veterans land jobs, mainly those with contracts tied to the federal government. The announcement comes in response to many soldiers? complaints that such opportunities have been obscure to nonexistent for them. With some 110,000 companies whose contracts make them eligible to take part in the law, the OFCCP, a subdivision of the Department of Labor, hopes to acquire better data on veterans? application for hiring rates as well as to establish a better outreach program so that more soldiers are aware of such preferential hiring.
See "Group Say Changes to Labor Law Won?t Do Enough for Veterans", Heather Timmons, The New York Times, June 26, 2011