The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced its final version of the new EEO-1 Form, which employers will be required to use beginning in September 2007. This form is required of all employers with 100 or more employees, and all federal government contractors who have 50 or more employees and a government contract of $50,000 or more.

Changes in the Form

After a lengthy public comment period, the EEOC made the following changes to the EEO-1 Form:

  • The new form strongly endorses employee self-identification of race and ethnicity.
  • The form now includes a new category for "Two or More Races."
  • The current category of "Asian or Pacific Islander" is divided into two new, separate categories: "Asian" and "Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander."
  • The job category of "officials and managers" has been divided into two new categories: "Executive/ Senior Level Officials and Managers" and "First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers."

Gathering the Data and Filing

All employers who must file the EEO-1 will be required to use the new form for the filing period ending Sept. 30, 2007. In preparing data for the new form, employers must use employment figures for a pay period between July and September 2007.

The EEOC states that self-identification by the employees is the preferred method for gathering the information for the EEO-1 Form. Employers may use employment records or visual observation to gather the data only when employees decline to self-identify.

The EEOC has also published an acceptable self-identification statement that the employer may use:

[Company Name] is subject to certain governmental record keeping and reporting requirements for the administration of civil rights laws and regulations. In order to comply with these laws, the employer invites employees to voluntarily self-identify their race and ethnicity. Submission of this information is voluntary. Refusal to provide it will not subject you to any adverse treatment. The information will be kept confidential and will be used only in accordance with the provisions of applicable laws, executive orders and regulations, including those that require the information to be summarized and reported to the federal government for civil rights enforcement. When reported, data will not identify any specific individual.

The EEOC strongly urges employers to submit the new EEO-1 data electronically.

Re-survey Encouraged in 2007, Required in 2008

In order to obtain valid information for the September 2007 submission, the EEOC suggests—and we recommend— that employers re-survey their workforces during the summer of 2007, preferably beginning in July. However, the EEOC does not require employers to re-survey current employees for the Sept. 30, 2007 filing. Employers will be required to do so before the filing date in September 2008.

Hispanic or Latino Employees

A new two-part inquiry must be made for Hispanic employees. This "two-question format" was quite controversial. The EEOC adopted the two-question format as, in its view, the format most likely to yield more accurate data about Hispanics or Latinos.

Notably, the new EEO-1 Form classifies Hispanics and Latinos as an "ethnic category" for which no race data needs to be reported. Employers must report race data (e.g. White, Asian, Black, etc.) only for employees who do not identify as Hispanic or Latino.

Employers may ask the following questions of all employees: "(1) Are you Hispanic or Latino?; (2) If not, what race do you consider yourself?" If any non-Hispanic employee identifies several different races, the employer should include the employee in the "two or more races" category. If an employee self-identifies as "Hispanic," he or she should be reported as "Hispanic" even though the employee may also claim to be in a different race.

Job Categories

The Commission has also revised the job categories that appear on the vertical axis of the new EEO-1 Form. As stated previously, the old category of "Officials and Managers" has been divided into two categories: "Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers" and "First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers." This change was made to avoid including line supervisors and first-level managers with senior executives.

Other Topics

The employer must accept an employee’s self-identification by race and ethnicity. An employer may not dispute the employee self-identification for purposes of filing the EEO-1 Form.

Data on the EEO-1 Form must, by law, be maintained in confidence by the EEOC.

Government contractors are among those employers who are required to file an EEO-1 Form, and contractors have the additional obligation of soliciting race, ethnicity and gender information from applicants. Currently, the regulations enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) require tracking applicant data using the previous race and ethnicity categories, although the OFCCP has indicated that it may issue revised regulations to resolve the inconsistency between applicant tracking records and EEO-1 requirements.

EE0-1 Sample Form

All revisions to the EEO-1 Form are contained in "Section D- Employment Data" only. To see a sample version of the revised section of the new form, visit http://www.eeoc.gov/eeo1/index.html.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.