On January 21, 2025, Executive Order 14173 revoked Executive Order 11246, the decades-old rule that had required federal contractors to run race- and sex-based affirmative action programs. Compliance teams read the headline and drew a wide conclusion: the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs was finished, and its paperwork with it. That reading is wrong in one expensive place. The duty to list your job openings with the state workforce agency never came from Executive Order 11246. It comes from a statute, the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, and that statute is still on the books.

VEVRAA rests on 38 U.S.C. 4212. Its operating rules live in 41 CFR part 60-300, which the eCFR still carries as current law, up to date as of July 2026. When the Department of Labor published its proposed rescission of the Executive Order 11246 regulations in the Federal Register on July 1, 2025, it put the point in writing: the same enforcement procedures also apply to VEVRAA and Section 503, and the agency is carrying both forward through separate rulemaking. For a company hiring cleared engineers on a defense contract, one line in that rulebook has teeth. Every covered opening has to go to the state job bank.

Did the 2025 executive-order rollback end the VEVRAA listing duty?

No. Executive Order 11246 was revoked January 21, 2025, but VEVRAA is a statute (38 U.S.C. 4212) with its own regulation, 41 CFR part 60-300, still current in 2026. DOL’s July 1, 2025 Federal Register notice confirms the agency is carrying VEVRAA forward.

The confusion is understandable. Three contractor obligations used to travel together: the Executive Order 11246 affirmative action program, Section 503 for individuals with disabilities, and VEVRAA for protected veterans. Only the first was built on an executive order, and only the first was revoked. The other two are acts of Congress, and DOL’s rescission notice was explicit that both continue. The state-job-bank rule sits inside that surviving VEVRAA regulation, and it binds federal contractors, not federal agencies. If you are unsure your company is even a covered contractor, our explainer on government contract jobs versus federal jobs draws the line first.

What does the mandatory listing rule actually require?

The equal-opportunity clause at 41 CFR 60-300.5 requires you to immediately list all covered openings with the appropriate employment service delivery system. Listing with the state workforce agency job bank satisfies it, and it must run at least concurrently with any other recruiting source.

The clause language is direct. A contractor “agrees to immediately list all employment openings” that exist when the contract is signed and those that arise during performance, and 41 CFR 60-300.5 makes the state job bank the easy path: listing with the state workforce agency job bank, or the local delivery system where the opening occurs, satisfies it. You are not filing with OFCCP. You are handing the opening to the public labor exchange your state already runs.

Two phrases carry the weight: “immediately,” and “at least concurrently with the use of any other recruitment source.” Post the req to your careers page and a niche board on Monday, and the state listing cannot wait until Friday; it goes up in the same window. The state system uses your listing to give protected veterans priority referral for that vacancy, and a private job exchange counts only if it feeds that information to the state in a way that preserves the referral. Listing is not hiring: the rule “does not require the hiring of any particular job applicants,” only that referrals are accepted into the pool. If you already write clean, findable reqs, this is a distribution step, and our notes on writing better job postings apply unchanged.

Which reqs must you list, and which are exempt?

Most of them. “All employment openings” includes full-time, part-time, and temporary roles longer than three days. Three carve-outs pull an opening out: executive and senior management, positions filled entirely from within, and jobs lasting three days or less. A fourth exception covers openings filled overseas.

Coverage trigger: the FAR applies clause 52.222-35, which carries this listing duty, to contracts of $200,000 or more (48 CFR 22.1303, amended August 27, 2025). OFCCP’s own regulation text still states $100,000. Lead with the $200,000 figure your contract actually cites.

Two exceptions get misread. The executive and senior management carve-out is narrow, defined by a salary-plus-duties test: a salary basis of at least $455 a week, a primary duty of managing the enterprise, direction of two or more employees, and authority to hire or fire, or a bona fide 20% equity stake with active management. That $455 figure is the number written into 60-300.5. It mirrors an older exempt-salary level and has not been refreshed to the current FLSA threshold, so treat it as the regulation’s own definition, not a live salary line. A mid-level program manager almost certainly fails this test, so the req is listable.

The filled-from-within exception is easier to lose. It applies only where no consideration will be given to anyone outside your organization, affiliates and subsidiaries and parents included, and it covers positions you plan to fill from an established recall list. The moment you decide to consider an outside applicant, the exception evaporates and the listing duty snaps back. The overseas exception is cleaner: it removes only openings that both occur and are filled outside the 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Wake Island, and the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands. A stateside req supporting an overseas program is not overseas.

Do cleared and classified reqs have to go to the job bank too?

Yes. A security-clearance requirement does not exempt an opening. The rule’s only exits are the enumerated ones, and “requires a clearance” is not among them. You list the vacancy, not the classified details, in a form that lets the state system refer protected veterans.

This is where cleared employers talk themselves into a gap. The instinct is that a Secret or TS/SCI billet is too sensitive to hand over. The rule does not agree. What you list is the job vacancy, in any manner the state system permits, so it can offer priority referral. You advertise that a cleared systems administrator opening exists and how to apply, not the program it supports. A cleared company may already advertise positions that require a clearance even though it cannot advertise the facility clearance itself, a distinction the Facility Security Officer in your shop knows well, since that role usually owns this compliance line.

Run the exceptions against a real pipeline and the pattern holds. A full-time cleared network engineer opened to outside candidates: list it. A vice president of programs who meets the salary-and-duties test: exempt. A three-week surge role for a cleared analyst: longer than three days, so list it. An OCONUS billet filled overseas: exempt. Because clearances take months and referrals are scarce, the state listing and its veteran priority referral are a sourcing channel you would want open anyway. Getting those hires through the pipeline is its own project, covered in our guidance for recruiters and FSOs, but the listing comes first and it is cheap.

Who is a protected veteran, and what is the hiring benchmark?

VEVRAA protects four groups: disabled veterans, recently separated veterans within a three-year window after discharge, active-duty wartime or campaign-badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans. Contractors set an annual benchmark; OFCCP last published a national figure of 5.2%, effective March 31, 2024, and revises it yearly.

The four categories in 41 CFR 60-300.2 are wider than employers assume. Recently separated veterans are protected for the full three-year period beginning on discharge or release from active duty, which sweeps in a large slice of transitioning service members. Active-duty wartime or campaign-badge veterans and Armed Forces service medal veterans round out the set. Disabled veterans, the first category, are where the myths do the most damage, and the reality is in our piece on disabled vets returning to work.

Employers most often misunderstand the benchmark. OFCCP publishes a national VEVRAA hiring benchmark on its website and updates it annually; the figure it most recently announced through its own compliance bulletin was 5.2%, effective March 31, 2024. Under 41 CFR 60-300.45, it is expressly “not a rigid and inflexible quota,” and quotas are forbidden. It is a yardstick for your veteran outreach, set annually, and you may adopt OFCCP’s national percentage or build an individualized benchmark from a five-factor method. The business case for real outreach, not a box-check, sits in our look at hiring veterans and the fuller veteran recruiting playbook. Confirm the percentage in force for your program year on OFCCP’s benchmark page before you set your own.

What happens if you skip the listing?

The sanctions are real. OFCCP can direct withholding of progress payments, cancel or terminate the contract, and debar the contractor from future federal work (41 CFR 60-300.66). Covered contractors also file the VETS-4212 report every year, which makes a listing gap easy to see.

The penalty ladder in 41 CFR 60-300.66 has three rungs. Progress payments can be withheld to correct violations. A contract can be canceled or terminated, in whole or in part. A contractor can be debarred from future contracts. None of that needs new legislation to apply in 2026; the regulation is current. A reporting duty makes the gap visible: covered contractors file the VETS-4212 report at least annually, tallying total employees and protected veterans by job category and hiring location, plus how many new hires were protected veterans. The FAR ties that report to the same $200,000 threshold as the clause.

Then there is the affirmative action program. A contractor with 50 or more employees and a covered contract of $100,000 or more must prepare and maintain a written VEVRAA affirmative action program at each establishment within 120 days of the contract’s start, under 41 CFR 60-300.40. That program documents the outreach the benchmark measures, and the listing is its front door. The contractors who do it well fold veteran hiring into retention rather than an annual scramble, as in our guide to building a long-term veteran workforce. Before your next VETS-4212 cycle in 2026, pull a full quarter of your reqs and test each against the three exceptions in 60-300.5. The openings that do not fit, and for cleared employers that is most of them, belonged in the state job bank the day you opened them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does VEVRAA require me to post every job with the state job bank?

Almost every one. The clause at 41 CFR 60-300.5 covers all employment openings, including full-time, part-time, and temporary roles lasting more than three days. Three exceptions remove an opening: executive and senior management, positions filled entirely from within, and jobs of three days or less. A separate carve-out covers openings that occur and are filled overseas.

What dollar threshold triggers the listing duty?

Under the FAR, the Equal Opportunity for Veterans clause (52.222-35) and its listing duty apply to contracts and subcontracts of $200,000 or more, set by the acquisition-threshold adjustment effective August 27, 2025 (48 CFR 22.1303). OFCCP’s own regulation text in 41 CFR part 60-300 still reads $100,000. The $200,000 figure is the one written into your contract clause, so lead with it and treat the $100,000 as the older regulatory number.

Are executive and senior-management openings really exempt?

Yes, but the definition is narrow. Under 60-300.5, it means an employee paid on a salary basis of at least $455 a week whose primary duty is managing the enterprise, who directs two or more employees, and who can hire or fire, or one with a bona fide 20% equity interest actively engaged in management. That $455 figure is the regulation’s own long-standing number, not the current FLSA level. Most mid-level and program-manager roles fail the test and must be listed.

Do classified or cleared positions have to be listed?

Yes. Holding a clearance is not one of the rule’s exceptions, so a cleared req is a covered opening unless it independently qualifies as senior management, filled-from-within, three days or less, or overseas. You list the job vacancy in a form that lets the state system offer protected veterans priority referral, not the classified details. Advertising a position that requires a clearance is permitted; advertising the facility clearance itself is not.