Under new rules proposed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), companies with 100 employees or more would be required to report payroll data on all workers to the federal government along with the demographic data that they now must submit.

The proposed rule also would apply to federal contractors with 100 employees or more.  Currently, federal contractors with 50 or more employees have been required to produce compensation data to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) during audits by that agency.  The proposed rule would apply the payroll data requirement to contractors with 100 or more employees, even when those contractors are not being audited.

The agencies’ goal is to identify and address instances in which men and women and persons of different races and ethnicities earn different wages for the same work.  The proposal would be implemented through a revised Employer Information Report (“EEO-1”) Form, which now requires employers to disclose to the EEOC data regarding employees’ gender, race, and ethnicity by job category.

Under the proposal, employers who file EEO-1 Forms would be required to report employees’ total W-2 earnings and hours worked across 12 pay bands for each of 10 job categories.  Federal contractors with between 50 and 99 employees would continue to be required to complete and file the current version of the EEO-1 Form.

A sample of the proposed new form is available from the EEOC here.  The proposed rules are available here.  Employers and other interested parties may submit comments on the proposal until April 1, 2016, after which the EEOC will publish final regulations to implement the proposal. 

If approved as drafted, the new requirements would begin with the EEO-1 Forms due September 30, 2017.