EEO Regulations: What You Should Know

Who is required to comply with the EEO regulations?

All sponsors of RAPs have a general duty to engage in steps to ensure they provide equal opportunity to all apprentices and apprenticeship candidates. They are prohibited from discriminating against potential and existing apprentices on the basis of disability status, race, gender, and ethnicity.

The steps sponsors are required to follow include:

Other guidelines sponsors must follow include:

RAPs with 5 or more apprentices must follow these steps:

Read more about the history of EEO regulations

On December 19, 2023 the U.S. Department of Labor issued updated regulations to modernize and simplify Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) practices in registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs). These rules, which had not been updated since 1978, originally barred employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, and sex, but they were revised in 2016 to extend protections for under-represented workers and apprentices, including women, minorities, and people with disabilities.