Some New Guidance on EEO-1 Reports But Questions Remain

By Mitchell J. Cogen - Bullard Law

April 26, 2019

We recently addressed a challenging situation that faced employers required to file EEO-1 forms. This includes both private employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors and first-tier subcontractors with both 50 or more employees and federal contracts of at least $50,000.  The challenge facing EEO-1 filing employers was that although a court order reinstated the Obama-era rule requiring “Component 2” pay data, along with “Component 1” workforce demographic data, be included on EEO-1 forms, the EEOC had no mechanism for actually receiving the pay data.

On April 25, 2019, the court accepted the EEOC proposal and ordered that Component 2 pay data, which includes W-2 wage data and hours worked for employees within 12 specified pay bands, be submitted no later than September 30, 2019. The current deadline to submit Component 1 data, which includes demographic data on race, gender and ethnicity by job category, remains May 31, 2019.

Despite the recent court ruling, some questions still remain for covered employers. It is unclear at this time whether the EEOC will remove or alter the existing May 31 Component 1 deadline to avoid two separate filings.  Additionally, confusion remains about which, if any, pay data set must be filed this year since the court gave the EEOC a choice of collecting either 2017 pay data in 2019 or 2017 and 2018 pay data in 2020. The EEOC has yet to choose.

Accordingly, employers subject to EEO-1 reporting requirements should retain all 2017 employee pay data, pending further guidance from the EEOC. The court gave the EEOC until April 29 to put a statement on its website informing employers of her decision and until May 3 to decide which second-year dataset to collect. The agency must also give the court a compliance update on May 3 and provide further updates every 21 days after that.

We will keep you updated on any new developments. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the new Component 2 data requirements on the EEO-1 form, please contact Bullard Law.