Pursuant to a recent court order, employers with 100 or more employees and certain federal contractors must submit employee wage and hour data organized into categories of race, sex and ethnicity (referred to as “EEO-1 Component 2 data”) for 2017 and 2018 to the EEOC by Sept. 30, 2019. While the precise form in which the Component 2 data will need to be submitted is unclear, employers are expected to be required to submit data for all employees — including full and part-time employees — in 12 pay bands and organized into various job categories identified by the EEOC. The required compensation data will be based on employee W-2 forms.

The EEOC expects to begin collecting Component 2 data in mid-July 2019 and anticipates that a helpdesk to assist filers with questions or concerns about data collection will launch within the next three weeks.

While the purported reason for collecting this data is to assist the EEOC in assessing alleged pay discrimination, there is considerable debate as to whether such data will be useful. For example, providing pay data in broad categories may create the appearance of pay disparities where none exist. Therefore, employers should review employee titles, duties and responsibilities before submitting the data to ensure that employees are properly classified within each job category identified by the EEOC.

Employers must still submit 2018 Component 1 data — the typical data historically provided on the EEO-1, reflecting the number of individuals employed by the employer organized by job category, race, ethnicity and sex — by May 31, 2019, unless the employer requests an extension to do so. The EEOC recently shortened the extension period from 30 days to two weeks. As such, the deadline for employers that obtain an extension to submit Component 1 data will be June 14.

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