Disability Employment: DOL Should Enhance Monitoring and Guidance for Federal Contractors

A GAO report finds the Department of Labor has suspended compliance audits under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act since January 2025, even though those audits found violations 532 times between fiscal 2017 and 2025. DOL also shrank the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs' workforce without conducting the strategic planning GAO says such cuts require.

The stakes are not small: the federal government spent $793 billion in 2025 on contracts employing over a million American workers, all nominally bound by a law requiring proactive hiring of people with disabilities. GAO's eight recommendations include resuming audits and giving contractors a list of compliance best practices, since stakeholders report real confusion about accommodations.

DOL agreed with six of the eight recommendations and would not commit either way on the remaining two, which is its own small data point about how seriously the suspension is being treated internally.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.