EEOC Confirms Employers Must Report EEO-1 Pay Data for 2017 and 2018

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) previously announced on April 4, 2019 that all covered employers have until September 30, 2019 to comply with the newly reinstated EEO-1 Component 2 pay data reporting requirements. On May 1, 2019, the EEOC clarified that the Component 2 data that must be submitted by the September 30, 2019 deadline includes data from both calendar years 2017 and 2018. The EEOC expects to open the online portal for submission of the Component 2 data in mid-July 2019. A copy of the announcement can be found here.

The Department of Justice has appealed the underlying court decision to reinstate the Component 2 data reporting requirement, but the appeal does not alone stay the district court’s order. Therefore, covered employers should continue to use the currently open EEO-1 portal to submit its Component 1 data by the May 31, 2019 deadline, and begin to prepare the Component 2 data for calendar years 2017 and 2018, so that it can be submitted by September 30, 2019.

As discussed in our previous advisory, the Component 2 data pertains to workforce pay and hours worked, broken down by job categories, race, ethnicity and sex. This new wage and hour data is intended to assist the EEOC in identifying potential discriminatory compensation practices.

As the EEOC will be looking for wage gaps and other potential discrepancies, employers should carefully review their Component 2 data in an effort to identify potential problems before submitting it to the EEOC.