On September 11, 2019, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that it would not seek approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to collect detailed employee compensation data on its Form EEO-1 next year. The current requirement that employers submit compensation data for calendar years 2017 and 2018 by September 30, 2019, remains unchanged.
In its announcement, the agency indicated that for calendar years 2019, 2020, and 2021, it would seek approval from OMB to collect only workforce demographic information (what is currently known as Component 1 of the expanded EEO-1). The agency has collected that information in some form or fashion since 1966.
In a formal notice scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on September 12, 2019, the EEOC set forth its reasoning for not seeking to continue collection of Component 2 data, which included detailed information, by establishment, on employee salary and hours worked. Using updated methodology that accounts for the number of reports employers must file, the agency indicated that the cost estimate it relied upon in seeking approval for this collection back in 2016 significantly understated the cost of compliance. The expanded EEO-1 data collection was approved at the very end of the prior Administration.
By way of background, the EEOC sought and was granted permission to collect this data from OMB in 2016, with reporting originally scheduled to begin in spring 2018. In August 2017, OMB informed the EEOC that it was staying its prior approval, and that the agency was no longer authorized to collect this data. OMB's stay of its prior approval was challenged in federal district court, and in March 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that OMB's stay was unlawful, and that the EEOC was required to collect two calendar years of compensation data. Component 1 of the EEO-1, containing demographic data, was required to be filed by May 31, 2019. Component 2 is required to be filed for calendar years 2017 and 2018 by September 30, 2019, and the agency's portal is presently open for submission.
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