The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the EEOC) announced yesterday that, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it would suspend the anticipated opening of its 2019 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection and the 2020 EEO-3 and EEO-5 data collections. The EEOCs EEO-1 Component 1 data collection process requires an employer to report the number of employees working for a covered business and sort those employees by job category, race, ethnicity, and gender. In turn, the EEOCs EEO-3 data collection process requires race, ethnicity, and gender reporting by local unions and the EEO-5 data collection process requires race, ethnicity, and gender reporting by public elementary and secondary school districts.
This does not mean, however, that covered entities will not be held responsible for reporting 2019 information. The EEOC plans to require covered employers to provide their 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 information together when reporting opens back up in early 2021.
Need another bit of good news? After seeing the time and expense that employers incurred to report their EEO-1 Component 2 compensation data for the September 2019 deadlinethe EEOC has decided to forgo collecting such data in the future. We previously posted about the now defunct EEO-1 Component 2 reporting requirements last fall, which were designed to give the EEOC more compensation data to address gender-based pay inequity.
Hopefully, this delay in EEO-1 reporting gives employers more time to focus on their COVID-19 related measures. For COVID-19 related information, you can visit our COVID-19 resource page on our website.