On April 25, 2019, a U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia ruled that, in addition to submitting EEO-1 surveys on employee demographic data to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC” or the “Commission”) by May 31, covered employers (e.g., those with at least 100 employees or federal contractors with at least 50 workers and a contract of $50,000 or more) must also report employee pay data to the Commission by September 30.
The Court also ordered the EEOC to collect a second year of pay data, along with pay data for 2018, but left it to the Commission to decide whether it will require employers to go back in their records and also submit pay data for calendar year 2017 by September 30, or just require employers to submit 2019 data (in 2020). The Court ordered the EEOC to make that
decision and notify the Court and employers of its decision by May 3.
The pay data portion of the EEO-1 report requires employers to submit wage information and information about hours worked for all full- and part-time employees, organized into categories of race, sex, ethnicity, and one of 10 job categories, and then further sorted into one of 12 government-defined wage bands. While we anticipate that the EEOC will issue further guidance about reporting logistics and other practical considerations in the coming weeks, and while there is also the possibility of an appeal in the current litigation which may impact the reporting deadline, based on the Court’s April 25 Order, employers should begin compiling the required compensation and hours data well in advance of the current
September 30 deadline to ensure compliance with the reporting obligations for this year. Employers also would be well-advised to review the data prior to submission to identify, investigate, and/or correct any potential discrepancies or pay gaps that cannot be justified by legitimate, non-discriminatory business reasons.
We will continue to monitor developments and provide updates as they become available.
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