10.509—If an employee's light-duty job is eliminated due to downsizing, what is the effect on compensation?
(a)
In general, an employee will not be considered to have experienced a compensable recurrence of disability as defined in § 10.5(x) merely because his or her employer has eliminated the employee's light-duty position in a reduction-in-force or some other form of downsizing. When this occurs, OWCP will determine the employee's wage-earning capacity based on his or her actual earnings in such light-duty position if this determination is appropriate on the basis that such earnings fairly and reasonably represent the employee's wage-earning capacity and such a determination has not already been made.
(b)
For the purposes of this section only, a light-duty position means a classified position to which the injured employee has been formally reassigned that conforms to the established physical limitations of the injured employee and for which the employer has already prepared a written position description such that the position constitutes “regular” Federal employment. In the absence of a “light-duty position” as described in this paragraph, OWCP will assume that the employee was instead engaged in non-competitive employment which does not represent the employee's wage-earning capacity, i.e., work of the type provided to injured employees who cannot otherwise be employed by the Federal Government or in any well-known branch of the general labor market.