If you have more than 100 employees at your company, recent developments will require you to report their pay data to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
On March 4, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia revived the 2016 EEOC requirement for employers to report the wages and hours of their workers, broken down by gender, race, ethnicity and job category. Compliance deadline is currently set for May 31, 2019.
This may not be news to some, as most private employers and federal contractors are already required to disclose annual employment data categorized by gender, race, ethnicity, and job category using the agency’s form EEO-1 Report.
The EEOC’s decision originated from a prior proposal by the Department of Labor to collect pay data from federal contractors to address wage disparities.
The EEOC finalized its pay data collection requirement in August 2016, but the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) later stayed the requirement on the ground that it would be too burdensome for employers.
Advocates for expanded reporting filed suit against the OMB and the EEOC in 2017. The U.S. District Court for District of Columbia subsequently ruled that the OMB failed to provide an adequate basis for its decision to stay the data collection. The court then vacated the stay and ordered the EEOC to implement the requirement.
It remains unclear whether the OMB will appeal this latest decision and if employers will need to comply with the EEOC’s requirement by the May deadline. It is anticipated the EEOC will soon issue guidance to employers regarding the timing of its pay data collection requirement. In the meantime, employers should take note of possible pay disparities within their workforce and take steps to ensure records are up to date.