1F01 Job Groups

A job group analysis is acceptable if it meets the requirements of 41 CFR 60-2.12. Each job group must be a group of jobs and/or job titles within a particular establishment having similar content, wage rates and opportunities.

a. List of Titles in Each Group. In order for COs to assess job group acceptability, the AAP must include, for each job group, a listing of the job titles that make up that group. If a contractor did not provide the lists, the CO must immediately contact the contractor and request that the lists be promptly provided for the desk audit.

b. Criteria for Acceptability. The following criteria are to be used in assessing the acceptability of job groups:

• Similar Work Content. Similarity of work “content” refers to the duties and responsibilities of the job titles that make up the job group.
  • Appropriate EEO Category. The CO will review the establishment’s job titles that make up each of the job groups to verify they are within the proper EEO-132 job categories. Job titles in each job group must, as a general rule, be within the same EEO-1 job category.33
  • Use of Occupational Information Network (O*NET). The CO may refer to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration’s O*NET database, as well as collective bargaining agreements, organizational charts and other data provided by the contractor to evaluate how the contractor formulated its job groups. O*NET lists standard job titles for most positions and codes them based on their duties, requirements and other factors. O*NET also gives descriptions of job duties and commonly required qualifications.
• Similar Rates of Pay. COs must review pay rates in conjunction with job content. Large apparent differences in pay among job titles within a job group or different locations within an organization, or both, suggest an unacceptable job grouping. They may also indicate areas where compensation or job assignment practices need further review.
• Similar Opportunities. “Opportunity” refers to the ability to take advantage of training opportunities, transfers, promotions, mobility to desirable wage or salary situations and other employment benefits. Most often, it refers to upward mobility. Ideally, each job within a job group should offer the same opportunities as any other job within that job group.
  • Jobs in Separate Unions. Jobs groups should not group together jobs from separate unions or jobs from different departments where interdepartmental mobility is not available. For example, job groups should not normally group together nonunion clerical jobs and clerical jobs that are covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
  • Jobs in Lines of Progression. Contractors should separate jobs that are in lines of progression from those that are not. When transferring or hiring into jobs above entry level is rare, COs must analyze each line of progression separately. When there are lines of progression governed by strict seniority, the contractor should consider the job titles in the progression as a single job group.

c. Job Groups Must Not Obscure Underutilization. Job groups that combine jobs with different content, wages or opportunities may obscure underutilization and OFCCP does not accept them.

d. Effect of Size of Contractor’s Workforce. While assessing the acceptability of a contractor’s job groups, COs must remember that the size of the contractor’s workforce is a major factor in determining how well the contractor meets the three criteria for the acceptability of job groups.

• Job Groups Must Permit Meaningful Analyses. Job groups should have enough incumbents to permit meaningful utilization analyses and goal setting. Optimally, when COs identify underutilization in a job group, the job group should be large enough so that a goal of at least one whole person can be established. No minimum size is established for this purpose because the goal is dependent on the size of the job group, and the percentage and the number of minorities or women already in the job group.
• Job Groups Should Not Normally Cross EEO-1 Job Categories. A contractor’s job groups should not ordinarily cross EEO-1 job categories. This means, for example, that a job group should not consist of a mixture of job titles from the “Professional” category and the “Technicians” category. COs should note that larger contractor establishments may have multiple job groups that fall into the same EEO-1 job category. Also, COs should note that smaller establishments (fewer than 150 employees) may use the EEO-1 job categories as their job groups.

e. Relationship Between Job Groups and Availability. The organization of jobs into groups should allow contractors to tie specific jobs to availability statistics to assess the degree to which their workforce representation approximates availability.