October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month 2010

WASHINGTON —President Barak Obama has declared the month of October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month 2010. The theme for this year is "Talent Has No Boundaries: Workforce Diversity Includes People with Disabilities."

The president signed an executive order on July 26, 2010, calling on federal agencies to set goals for increasing the numbers of people with disabilities who are hired. The order also seeks to improve the retention and return-to-work rate of federal employees with disabilities.

The Department of Labor is soliciting input from the public on how it can strengthen the affirmative action requirements of the regulations implementing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Proposed changes to this provision of the law would hold federal contractors, which create 25 percent of available jobs in America, to benchmarks for hiring qualified workers with disabilities.