On April 25, 2019, a Washington, D.C. federal judge ruled that all employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees have until September 30, 2019 to submit their 2018 pay data to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), reflecting how much the employers paid workers of different sexes, races and ethnicities last year. This data is to be submitted as Component 2 of the EEO-1 form, and will supplement the EEOC’s long-running collection of employers’ demographic data.

The decision accepts the deadline proposed by the EEOC, following the court’s March ruling reinstating the data collection adopted by the Obama administration to root out gender- and race-based pay gaps, which was rolled back by the Trump administration in 2017 for various reasons, including paperwork burden.

The EEOC previously indicated that it did not have the infrastructure to accept and secure employers’ pay data.

The EEOC must issue a statement on its website informing employers of the September 30, 2019 deadline by April 29, 2019, and must provide periodic compliance updates to the court.

The EEOC was also ordered by the court to collect a second year of pay data in 2020, and has until May 3, 2019 to post on its website and advise the court whether it will collect 2017 or 2019 data from employers.

This decision and the corresponding reporting obligations now placed on employers underscores the EEOC’s continuing focus on unlawful pay disparities in the workplace and the need for employers to consider conducting self-auditing practices to ensure compliance with pay equity laws.

Employers who would like more information on how to meet these new reporting obligations or the process for conducting pay equity audits are well-advised to contact any one of Sheppard Mullin’s Labor and Employment attorneys or their regular employment counsel.

The case is NWLC et al. v. OMB et al., case number 1:17-cv-02458, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.