This week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published its new EEO-1 form, which will require employers to annually submit pay data by gender and race for ten different job categories. Employers' first reports with pay data are not due until March 31, 2018, for 2017 data. The five-member commission voted 3-2 to approve the new EEO-1 form with Commissioners Victoria Lipnic and Constance Barker, both Republicans, voting against the revision. Under the new report, employers with more than 100 employees will have to submit the total number of employees in the U.S. and their total number of hours worked for 12 different pay bands (pay ranges), by gender, race and ethnicity, for each of the ten EEO-1 job categories for each establishment and the headquarters. For FLSA-exempt salaried employees, employers can either assume 40 hours per week for full-time exempt employees and 20 hours for part-time employees, or use actual hours worked if "accurate records" are maintained. Employers will count their employees during a new "snapshot" pay period between October 1 and December 31, and will use the W-2 income and total hours worked for these employees for the entire calendar year when filing the new report. According to the EEOC, the new EEO-1 data will be used:
- By EEOC staff who conduct complaint intakes to "issue spot" potential pay discrimination;
- To support the agency's data analysis at the early stages of an investigation, using statistical tests to identify significant disparities in reported pay; and
- To publish periodic reports on pay disparities by race, sex, industry, occupational groupings, and Metropolitan Statistical Area.
