On September 29, 2016, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) announced the approval of a revised Employer Information Report (the “Revised EEO-1”) that must be submitted by private employers and federal contractors with 100 or more employees.

For many years, employers have been required to complete the EEO-1 to provide data about the number of employees by job category and by sex and race or ethnicity.  The Revised EEO-1 has two new elements:

1. Summary Pay Data: employers are required to report the total number of full and part-time employees by demographic categories (sex and race or ethnicity) in each of the 12 pay bands listed for each of the 10 Revised EEO-1 job categories based on W-2 wages; and
2. Aggregate Hours Worked Data: employers must tally and report the number of hours worked that year by all employees accounted for in each pay band.  For exempt employees, employers may either: (a) report 20 hours per week for each part-time employee and 40 hours per week for each full-time employee; or (b) report actual number of hours worked by exempt employees.

EEOC Chair Jenny R. Yang said that “[c]ollecting pay data is a significant step forward in addressing discriminatory pay practices.  This information will assist employers in evaluating their pay practices to prevent pay discrimination and strengthen enforcement of our federal antidiscrimination laws.”

Employers have criticized the Revised EEO-1 as imposing a costly burden on them, while not providing useful data.  Specifically, employers contend that the broad, aggregated pay data will not be of practical use to federal agencies because it does not account for the factors involved in determining employee compensation and W-2 wages do not capture an employee’s total compensation.

Notably, federal contractors with between 50 and 99 employees will not be required to report pay data, but will still be required to report demographic statistics by job category.  Private employers with fewer than 100 employees and federal contractors with fewer than 49 employees are not required to submit an EEO-1.

The first Revised EEO-1 report will be due on March 31, 2018, and based on W-2 wage information for the 2017 calendar year. A copy of the Revised EEO-1 can be found here.

We anticipate that the Revised EEO will be legally challenged by employer groups in the coming months.  We will keep you updated.