EEOC Formally Notifies Employers EEO-1 Pay Reporting Requirements Are Suspended

Author: Robert S. Teachout, XpertHR Legal Editor

September 19, 2017

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has told employers not to report employees' pay data when filing their 2017 EEO-1 report in a notice published in the September 15 Federal Register. However, employers still must comply with earlier EEO-1 form requirements and report data on race, ethnicity and gender by occupational category.

The notice follows an August 29 memo sent by the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs informing the EEOC that it was initiating an immediate stay and review of the pay data component of the form. In its notice, the EEOC instructed employers required to file the EEO-1 report not to submit aggregate data about W-2 (Box 1) income and hours worked.

The Obama administration had changed the pay data reporting form in September 2016 in an effort to counter pay discrimination. However, many employer groups argued that the new requirements were excessively burdensome, and would cost employers up to $1.3 billion per year.

Following suspension of the pay data requirement by the OMB, EEOC commissioner Chai Feldblum said the agency has "no timeline" to replace the compensation reporting requirements.

Employers that are required to file an EEO-1 report should continue to report the same data about the ethnicity, race and sex of workers by job category as they filed in previous years. The deadline for filing the 2017 report is March 31, 2018, and uses a "workforce snapshot period" between October 1 and December 31, 2017.