Import failure - Deep South

i was trying to load Demographic info into the production environment and i am getting a file failure when i try to load the file.
The error only occurs when i make "Date of Employment" a required field.
when its not required, it loads fine.
i have tested this on two different templates.

also, i know that we requested and enhancement that more info would be provided when a load fails. The only info i got was "Import failure"

Company:Deep South
Template Name: EE Census Initial Load MS & Deep South New Hire Load
This was a manual import

cc Abhay Patil