Pending Court Approval; AGC Calls for More Time to Comply

Pending court approval, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced on April 3 its intention to require private employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees to submit the Obama-era pay data portion of the EEO-1 report (which requires 3,660 data fields per employer location) by September 30, 2019. However, the deadline to submit the EEO-1 report’s “traditional” race and gender data (which requires 180 data fields per employer location) remains May 31, 2019. AGC and business allies submitted an amicus brief calling on the court to provide at least 18 months for contractors to prepare their systems for the new pay data requirements. AGC will continue to consider its legal options as more unfolds.
A federal court recently reinstated the Obama administration EEOC pay data reporting requirement—which was halted under the Trump administration—as part of the federally mandated filing of the EEOC’s EEO-1 report.  The reinstated pay data report will require applicable employers to report the total number of employees and total number of hours worked for 12 different pay bands (pay ranges) for 10 different EEO-1 job categories and 14 different gender and race/ethnicity groups.

There may be additional challenges or delays to the implementation of this pay data reporting requirement. Nevertheless, applicable AGC members—pending court approval—should plan as though they need to report pay data by the current May 31, 2019 deadline. Many AGC member companies will need to identify how to pull this payroll and demographic information. This may require advanced planning, as many firms use separate systems to maintain demographic data versus compensation data.

AGC previously opposed this pay data reporting requirement, calling upon the Trump administration and Congress to rescind it. AGC submitted comprehensive comments explaining its position to the EEOC in April and August 2016.

For more information, contact Claiborne Guy at [email protected].