On July 14, 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) published an updated proposal to collect pay data through the Employer Information Report (EEO-1).  EEO-1 data is collected by the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) for the purpose of identifying discriminatory employment practices.  Currently, private employers with 100 or more employees, and federal contractors with 50 to 99 employees, must annually submit an EEO-1 reporting the number of employees by job category, race, ethnicity, and sex.

The new EEO-1 will require employers, including federal contractors, with 100 or more employees to additionally submit data about pay.  Thus, federal contractors with 50 to 99 employees will not be required to report pay data, but will continue to report job category, race, ethnicity, and sex data.  The updated proposal may be reviewed here, and a sample of the proposed EEO-1 Report may be found here.

Pay data identifies employees’ total W-2 earnings for a 12-month period, July 1st through September 30th of the reporting year.  The first EEO-1 pay data would be due September 30, 2017.  Supporters of the proposal say pay data collection will not overly burden employers because most human resource information systems allow employers to calculate W-2 earnings for any 12-month period, not just the calendar year.  However, other commentators suggest that collection pay data could be simplified, and likely more accurate, if the reporting deadline was extended from September 30, 2017 to March 31, 2018 to allow employers to use existing W-2s that are based on the calendar year.

To consider these comments and others, the EEOC instituted an additional 30-day comment period.  Accordingly, the public may submit comments on the proposed EEO-1 report until August 15, 2016.

If you have any questions regarding these issues raised in this client alert, please contact your labor and employment counsel at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP.

This client alert is intended to inform clients and other interested parties about legal matters of current interest and is not intended as legal advice.