EEOC to Collect Summary Pay Data

Starting in March 2018, The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will collect employee summary pay data from certain employers.
The new data will improve investigations of possible pay discrimination.
The summary pay data will be added to the annual Employer Information Report or EEO-1 report that is coordinated by the EEOC and the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. OFCCP collects data from federal contractors and subcontractors.
The EEOC adopted the new EEO-1 after an extensive deliberative process that included publication of two versions of the proposed EEO-1 for public comment and a public hearing on March 16, 2016, at which stakeholders, researchers, and academics discussed the EEO-1 proposal and responded to questions from EEOC Commissioners.
In total, the EEOC considered written comments from thousands of individuals, employers and their representatives, civil rights and women’s organizations, human resources and payroll associations, and members of Congress.

Employer Requirements, Deadlines, Support

EEOC is committed to providing support for employers as they transition to reporting summary pay data on the new EEO-1 report.

In response to public comments, the first deadline for the new 2017 EEO-1 report will be March 31, 2018, which gives employers 18 months to prepare.
This revision does not impact the 2016 EEO-1 report, which is due Sept. 30, 2016 and is unchanged.
Private employers including federal contractors and subcontractors with 100 or more employees will report summary pay data.
Federal contractors and subcontractors with 50–99 employees will not report summary pay data, but they will continue to report employees by job category as well as by sex, ethnicity, and race as they do now.
Employers with 99 or fewer employees and Federal contractors and subcontractors with 49 or fewer employees will not be required to complete the EEO-1 report as is current practice.
EEOC will offer free webinars for interested employers and stakeholders on Oct. 20 and Oct. 26, 2016. Technical assistance also will be available through the EEOC’s hotline and email.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Under no circumstances should employers report individual pay or salaries or any personally identifiable information.
The EEOC does not disclose EEO-1 data for a specific employer; it only publishes large-scale aggregated EEO-1 data in a way that fully protects employer confidentiality and employee privacy.
OFCCP holds EEO-1 data for federal contractors and subcontractors confidential to the maximum extent possible under the Freedom of Information Act and the Trade Secrets Act.