On August 29, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was initiating a review and immediate stay of employee compensation reporting requirements that were slated to become part of the EEO-1 Report. This means that for 2017, employers will need to complete an EEO-1 Report in the same format as reports they are familiar with from previous years. The report will be due March 31, 2018.

Covered employers are required to file the EEO-1 Report each year, identifying the number of employees in various job groups by race and sex. Covered employers include private companies with 100 or more employees and some smaller companies, including smaller government contractors and subcontractors. In September 2016, the EEOC announced that it had approved a revised EEO-1 Report—which would have become effective for 2017. In addition to the data already required regarding employees' race and sex, the report would have required employers to identify one of 12 "pay bands" into which employees' compensation fell. Critics of the proposed change argued that the requirement was burdensome and would not give the EEOC meaningful data from which to analyze alleged compensation discrimination.

The OMB's move will likely be welcomed by employers and government contractors. EEOC Acting Chair Victoria Lipnic said in a statement that the EEOC plans to review its options going forward, and that she hopes "that this decision will prompt a discussion of other more effective solutions to encourage employers to review their compensation practices to ensure equal pay and close the wage gap."

Acting Chair Lipnic's statement can be found on the EEOC website.