In accordance with Executive Order 13940 Aligning Federal Contracting and Hiring Practices With the Interests of American Workers and Office of Management and Budget memorandum M-21-08, subject: Review of Federal Contracting and Hiring Practices Under Executive Order 13940 agencies should evaluate, at a minimum, service contracts from the 25 contractors with which they have made the most obligations during FYs 18 and 19, or such number of contractors to cover at least 10 percent of the agency’s obligations for services during this period, for work performed in the United States. To comply with the Executive Order and OMB Memorandum, the Small Business Administration (SBA) requests approval to:A. Collect information to review use of temporary foreign labor as follows -
1. For each covered service contractor in the review pool, determine if the contractor has policies in place to recruit U.S. or permanent residents before hiring temporary foreign labor.
2. For any contract performed by the contractors in the agency’s review pool that involved any temporary foreign labor (i.e., labor performed by a non-U.S. citizen authorized to work pursuant to a temporary work visa), seek to document the following:
a. The contract number under which temporary foreign labor was used;
b. A brief description of the scope of the contract;
c. For work performed by foreign labor:
i. A brief description of the tasks performed (e.g., software engineering, information technology help desk support), which may be described using the most appropriate Product Service Code (PSC) or the first two digits of the PSC category;
ii. The type of work visa under which the work was performed (e.g., H-1B visa);
iii. Whether opportunities for United States workers were affected by such hirings; and
iv. Any potential effects on the national security caused by such hiring.
3. The agency should work with each contractor, to the extent feasible prior to the reporting deadline, to document the information outlined in paragraphs 1 and 2 above for any first tier subcontractors.
B. Collect information to review offshoring practices as follows -
Determine if the contractor reassigned any work activities (directly supporting performance of the contract or overhead activities) previously performed at a company’s U.S. operations to a location outside the United States in the performance of any service contract (I) it received, (II) was performing during Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019, or (III) announced plans during this period to offshore work prior to the completion of the contract.
If the agency identifies any offshoring activities, it should document the following:
1. The contract number identifying the contract where offshoring occurred or was planned;
2. A brief description of the scope of the contract;
3. A brief description of the work activities (tasks) that were offshored, which may be described using the most appropriate PSC or the first two digits of the PSC category;
4. Whether the identified offshoring impacted or otherwise reduced U.S. citizen job opportunities;
5. Whether the identified offshoring affected United States workers eligible for assistance under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program which arose out of the Trade Act of 1974; and
6. What, if any, impacts there may have been on national security as a result of the identified offshoring.
The SBA has reviewed the obligations for FY 2018 and FY 2019 which identified two contracts contain over 10% of the total obligations of those fiscal years. Therefore, two requests for information will be sent.
US Code:
5 USC 5 CFR
Name of Law: Controling Paper work burdens on the public