On September 25, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) issued a final rule that changed the reporting requirements for federal contractors and subcontractors who hire and employ veterans under provisions of the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974.

The new rule, which is applied to reports filed beginning in 2015, replaces the requirement for some federal contractors to report the number in each protected veteran category and instead requires contractors to report the total number of protected veterans they employ and hire on a new form.

Under current VETS rules, specified federal contractors and subcontractors are required to submit annual reports known as the VETS-100 and VETS-100A. The new rule creates a new Federal Contractor Veterans' Employment Report, VETS-4212, to replace the VETS-100A report for government contracts and subcontracts worth at least $100,000 entered into or modified after Dec. 1, 2003, and eliminates the VETS-100 report.

The rule also replaces the term “other protected veteran” with “active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran” and requires contractors with 10 or more hiring or business locations to file their VETS-4212 reports electronically, while contractors with fewer than 10 hiring locations may file their reports electronically or in paper format.