On August 8, 2023, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) certified use of an updated Employer Information Report (EEO-1 Component 1) pursuant to 29 CFR 1602.7 (“the Report”). The Report captures workforce demographic data including data by employees’ work location, job category and sex and race or ethnicity.
EEOC opened the reporting period for the 2022 reporting on October 31, 2022. Reports must be filed by December 5, 2023. The 2022 reporting period runs from October 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022. The data “snapshot” date for reporting is as any pay period the filer selects for the period October 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022.
EEOC requires that private sector employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees submit the Report. The EEO-1 Component 1 Instruction Booklet (“the Instruction”) further defines which entities must file and provides an overview of filing requirements. The EEO-1 Component 1 Data File Uploads Specification document details the mechanics of Report creation.
Changes to the reporting, summarized below, are significant.
Mandatory Electronic Filing: The EEO-1 Component 1 Online Filing System (OFS), at https://www.eeocdata.org/, is a web-based portal EEOC uses to electronically collect employers’ EEO-1 Reports. Filers now must submit their data electronically using the OFS. Employers can file by entering data manually or by uploading data files.
Qualifying questions: OFS now includes eligibility questions to determine whether an employer must file Report(s). Report. Additionally, employers must identify whether their businesses and/or any headquarters or non-headquarters establishments (work locations) are federal contractors.
No more small-location roll-ups: EEOC no longer requires filers to combine employees in small work locations into aggregated “Type 4”, “Type 6”, or “Type 8” Reports. Instead, filers must create a filing for each work location, no matter how small. An employer with a single work location will file a single “Establishment-Level Report”. A filer with multiple work locations must file a Headquarters Report in addition to its Establishment-Level Report(s). Headquarter reports must include remote employees who report to the employer’s headquarters. OFS now automatically generates Consolidated Reports from the Headquarters and Establishment-level reports the filter creates.
Identification system: The government no longer uses the “Data Universal Numbering System” (DUNS) to identify entities doing business with the federal government. Instead, filers including federal contractors must use a “Unique Entity ID” (UEI), a 12-characer alphanumeric identifier created at www.sam.gov. Search here to find your UEI number. Subcontractors without a UEI number should enter “unavailable”.
Report(s) requires use of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) to identify the primary industry in which your employer’s business or establishments operate. Make sure your NAISC code use is current for 2022 (some codes have changed). Check at North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) U.S. Census Bureau.
Non-binary reporting: The Instruction notes that employers may voluntarily choose to submit data for non-binary employees by noting detail in Reports’ comments sections. “If the sex reported by an employee during voluntary self- identification differs from the sex recorded in the employee’s employment records, the employer should report the former (i.e., self-identification) and not the latter (i.e., employment records).
Telework: Employees who work remotely and/or telework must be included in the report of the specific establishment to which they report. If a remote employee “is not assigned to and does not report” to any physical location on a permanent basis, the employee should be counted at the establishment to which the employee’s manager reports or is assigned. (Try to keep this from aligning everybody into headquarters!)
Work at client sites: For the 2022 report cycle, employers maintain the option of reporting employees working at client sites by (1) using the client site address as the location of the establishment or (2) reporting those employees at an establishment of the employer (i.e., non-client site). Beginning with the 2023 report, employers must report employees working at client site locations at the address of the client site.
Organizational changes: Employers that experienced an acquisition, spinoff, or merger since the last EEO-1 Component 1 reporting cycle must report the changes using the OFS’s “Report Acquisition, Spinoff or Merger” module.
Contracting EEO-1 Report creation: Employers who use a consultant (referred to as a “third-party human resource organization” in the Instruction) to create EEO-1 filings must still register in OFS and must provide point of contact information, and certification by a company official that the submission is “correct and true”.
Meeting the filing threshold: Beginning with the 2023 EEO-1 Report, an employer that meets the employee threshold for reporting purposes at any time during the fourth quarter (i.e., October 1 through December 31) of the reporting year, may not select a workforce snapshot period where it falls below the threshold in an effort to avoid the filing requirement.
The EEOC advises filing entities to visit www.eeocdata.org/eeo1 for the latest updates regarding the 2022 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection, including any updates regarding the deadline to submit and certify reports.
EEOC has created a Filer Support Team Message Center within OFS for filer support. The EEOC has a FAQ that, among other things, includes information on how to determine an employee’s race or ethnicity.
EEOC certified use of the new EEO-1 form for one year (ending August 31, 2024). In the past, the form has been certified for several years at a time. The new form’s short, one-year end date may signal that EEOC plans to make additional changes to the reporting sooner rather than later. Further changes will likely add “Component 2” pay data collection to the filing requirement. (See Circa’s blog The National Academies of Sciences “Component 2” Pay Data Report: Another Step Towards Regular Pay Data Collection outlining concerns with the EEOC’s plans to update the Report.) EEOC officials have said that the Agency will ask for public input on pay data reporting requirements. One can only hope that the short timeline for the EEO-1 form does not show the Agency has made up its mind to go ahead with its current, controversial pay data collection proposal.
