Private employers with more than 100 employees previously have been required to report workforce data across 10 job categories broken down by race, gender and ethnicity. The data is reported annually by October 1 to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) on the EEO-1 form, which currently comprises one page for each facility of an employer.
In the summer of 2016, during the Obama administration, the EEOC expanded the EEO-1 effective March 31, 2018, to require employers to report the racial and gender makeup of employees in each of the 10 job categories within 12 pay ranges. This would expand the EEO-1 report from one page to as many as 10 pages for employers, with a separate report being needed for each of an employer’s facilities.
In 2017, during the Trump administration, the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) issued a stay on the pay data portions of the revised EEO-1, as business groups were concerned that the additional requirements would be too burdensome and costly.
The National Women’s Law Center and the Labor Council for Latin America Advancement subsequently sued the EEOC and OMB in November 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 17-2458. On March 4, 2019, Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that the OMB’s action in staying implementation of the revised EEO-1 was an “arbitrary and capricious” decision that lacked any “reasoned explanation.” The Court then vacated the OMB’s stay and ordered the EEOC’s expanded EEO-1 to be in effect.
Prior to the D.C. Court’s ruling, the EEO-1 filing deadline for the revised EEO-1 had been set at May 31, 2019. It is not clear whether employers will have to comply with the new requirements by the current deadline of May 31, but it is anticipated that the OMB will appeal the decision, and that the EEOC will soon issue guidance regarding the Court’s March 4 ruling.
We will continue to keep you updated as new information becomes available.