As we previously reported here, on March 4, 2019, a federal court issued an order lifting the stay implemented by the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) regarding the pay data collection component of the EEO-1 report, finding that the OMB failed to demonstrate good cause for the stay.  The order left many open questions concerning how and when employers would be required to respond with pay data in their EEO-1 filings.  At a March 19 status conference, the court requested that the government come up with a plan to comply with its order.

In response, OMB informed the court in a brief filed on April 3, 2019 that the EEOC is able to undertake and complete collection of the required 2018 EEO-1 pay data forms by September 30, 2019.  However, the proposed deadline is contingent upon the EEOC’s use of a third party data and analytics contractor, and the agency estimates that the collection by September 30 will “cost in excess of $3 million.”  Further, the EEOC warns that “there is a serious risk that the expedited data collection process may yield poor quality data because of the limited quality control and quality assurance measures that would be implemented due to the expedited timeline.”

The court must approve the government’s proposed plan before it becomes effective.  OMB’s brief did not provide information regarding when pay data collection would begin, and notably, the proposed September 30 deadline is also the expiration date for OMB’s approval of the pay data collection report.

We will keep you updated on further developments on EEO-1 pay data reporting.  In the meantime, as a reminder, the EEOC’s EEO-1 survey opened on March 18, 2019, and the deadline to submit all other EEO-1 data, such as race and gender information, is still May 31, 2019.