Friday, April 29, 2022: Deadline Looming For EEO-1 Survey – Then Its Failure To File Phase
The annual EEO-1 Component 1 Data Collection is due Tuesday, May 17th, for employers subject to Title VII and with over 100 employees and for covered federal Government contractors with 50 or more employees.
What happens once the Tuesday, May 17, 2022, deadline passes? May I still submit the data?
According to the EEOC’s FAQ:
Yes. Following the May 17, 2022, published deadline, the EEOC will enter the “failure to file” phase. All filers who have not submitted and certified their mandatory 2021 EEO-1 Component 1 Report(s) by the Tuesday, May 17, 2022, published deadline will receive a notice of failure to file instructing them to submit and certify their data AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, and NO LATER THAN TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2022. This additional time, through Tuesday, June 21st, 2022, will be available to ALL filers who have not submitted and certified their 2021 EEO-1 Component 1 Report(s) by the May 17, 2022, published deadline.
Editorial Note: There is nothing new here other than that the EEOC/Joint Reporting Committee is publicizing what most filers learned when the Component 2 filings occurred, and the Joint Reporting Committee kept accepting EEO-1 filings for almost a half year after the filing deadline.
What happens once the June 21, 2022 deadline passes?
According to the same FAQ:
NO additional 2021 EEO-1 Component 1 Reports will be accepted, and eligible filers will be out of compliance with their mandatory 2021 EEO-1 Component 1 filing obligation.
What happens to employers who fail to file and are out of compliance?
According to John C. Fox: Nothing.
The EEOC could sue in federal court seeking an injunction to require the company to file, but that has never happened that anyone can remember. Moreover, it would be silly, anyway, since any employer/contractor trying to file late (after the EEOC closed the filing portal) would deprive the EEOC of a “case or controversy” necessary to sustain federal court jurisdiction.
So, why does the EEOC ever close its filing portal? Because it wants to crunch the data and does not want to re-run analytical reports the Commission and the OFCCP run on the EEO-1 file over and over again. Big budget problem to do that, especially since this is a large file.
For additional information, including how to report non-binary employees, see our recent story, “Action Item: Time to File EEO-1 Survey.”