The new Illinois Equal Pay Act amendment requires Illinois employers with 100 or more employees to obtain an Equal Pay Registration Certificate, certifying the employer’s compliance with the Act. Covered employers will receive notification from the Illinois Department of Labor. However, every employer’s deadline to apply is different, and some employers may not yet have received their reporting deadline from the Illinois Department of Labor. However, employers with late 2022 or early 2023 deadlines should start preparing the information they will need to compile when filling out their applications, so they are ready to submit their applications to the Illinois Department of Labor when they receive their filing deadline.

When applying for the Equal Pay Registration Certificate, employers will need to include:

• wage records, including the most recent EEO-1 report filed by the company and a list of employee-level data for all employees working in Illinois, which should include:
  • employee names, gender, race, and ethnicity, which is consistent with the data reported in the company’s EEO-1 report;
  • the county where the employee works;
  • the employee’s total wages rounded to the nearest $100.00;
  • the employee’s hire and, if applicable, termination date;
  • the employee’s job title; and
  • the employee’s EEO-1 classification;
• an equal pay compliance statement signed by a corporate officer, legal counsel, or registered agent that certifies:
  • statutory compliance with the Illinois Equal Pay Act and other state and federal equal opportunity laws;
  • a lack of wage disparity between male, female, and minority employees;
  • that there are no sex-based personnel decisions;
  • that wage disparities are addressed when identified; and
  • that there is a frequency of wage determinations and evaluations, including how those evaluations are conducted.

Employers subject to the Illinois Equal Pay Act amendment are required to recertify their compliance with the Act every year. An employer’s filing deadline this year, or in early 2023, will serve as its filing deadline for each subsequent year.