“Hiring veterans and disabled workers might be good politics, but it’s  expensive policy, according to a construction contractors’ trade group and other  pro-business outfits.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs  is mulling a new equal-opportunity employment rule that would require all  contractors — construction companies as well as IT firms to airplane  manufacturers — doing business with the government “to set a hiring goal of  having 7 percent of their employees be qualified workers with disabilities.”

Another amendment to federal contracting policy would require government  contractors and subcontractors to make a “fair and reasonable” effort to hire  veterans and meticulously document efforts to recruit and hire former military  personnel.

While the new rules would set “goals” — not quotas — by the federal  government’s own description, the Associated General Contractors of America says  that meeting those goals would be hugely expensive, at least for construction  companies, and far more expensive than the government’s cost-of-compliance  estimates issued to date.”

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