The EEOC Wants to Scrap the EEO-1 Report. Here's What That Means If You Have 100 or More Employees

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has proposed getting rid of the EEO-1, the annual report in which employers with 100 or more workers count their staff by race, sex and job category, and on July 30 it published formal notice of the public hearing it must hold first, set for Aug. 11 ^{[1, 2]}. If you run a growing business that crossed the 100-employee line, or you hold federal contracts, this one is about your paperwork ^{[1, 4]}.

What the EEOC proposed

The proposal, published July 23 under RIN 3046-AB37, would remove every one of the commission’s workforce data reports: the EEO-1 for private employers and the EEO-2 through EEO-6 for apprenticeship committees, unions, state and local governments, school districts and colleges ^[1]. It would also remove the recordkeeping requirements that exist only to fill those reports out ^[1]. The EEO-2 and EEO-6 haven’t been collected since 1981 and 1993, so for private businesses the real change is the EEO-1 ^[1].

The commission voted 2-1 along party lines to issue it ^[4].

Here’s the short version of the EEOC’s reasons. It says routine collection of race and sex data, with no charge of discrimination behind it, is “not narrowly tailored,” may encourage the stereotyping the law forbids, and may be unconstitutional ^[1]. It also says the reports cost it real money: about $3.9 million a year to run the EEO-1 alone, and more than $18 million in contractor costs across its data collections over the last five years ^[1]. Chair Andrea Lucas said the reports “stand in direct tension with Title VII’s requirement that employment practices be colorblind” ^[3].

What doesn’t change: the EEOC can still demand specific records from a particular employer when it is investigating a charge ^{[1, 3]}. HR Dive noted that some employers have used their own EEO-1 data for internal checks on nondiscrimination ^[4].

Why there’s a hearing at all

This part comes straight from 1964. Section 709(c) of the Civil Rights Act lets the commission require records and reports only “after public hearing” ^[5]. The EEOC reads that as requiring a hearing before it changes reporting rules, so it scheduled one ^[2].

The hearing runs from 10 a.m. to noon Eastern on Aug. 11 at EEOC headquarters, 131 M Street NE in Washington, with a listen-only audio line ^[2]. Audio listeners can’t speak. If you want a speaking slot, your written request and a summary of your remarks are due Aug. 7, and the EEOC will tell you by close of business Aug. 10 whether you got one ^[2]. Written comments count whether or not you testify ^[2].

How much paperwork are we talking about?

The EEOC put numbers on it, using estimates from its 2023 paperwork notice ^[1]. About 110,000 employers file, and together they submit about 2.24 million reports a year, because multi-location employers file one for each site ^[1]. The commission puts the total at roughly 5.2 million hours and about $273 million a year in employee time, figured at $34.87 an hour ^[1].

Per filer, the averages look like this ^[1]:

• One location: one report, about 45 minutes.
• More than one location: a consolidated report (the EEOC counts it at zero minutes, since it’s generated from the others), a headquarters report at about 50 minutes, and a report for every other location at about 150 minutes each.

Remember the beneficial ownership saga? I wrote last week about the BOI rule still waiting to be finalized. Different agency, different form, same theme: a federal report many small companies were told to file is being pulled back by rulemaking, and until the final rule lands, the old text is still the text.

Does this apply to you?

Hypothetical one: a single-shop machine company with 110 employees. Say a hypothetical manufacturer has one plant and no federal contracts. It’s over 100 employees, so it files the EEO-1 today ^[1]. By the EEOC’s average, that’s one report and about 45 minutes, or roughly $26 of staff time at the commission’s hourly figure ^[1]. The savings are small. The bigger relief would be dropping the race and sex records kept only to fill out the form ^[1].

Hypothetical two: a heating and cooling company with 130 employees across a headquarters and two branches. This hypothetical business files a headquarters report plus two location reports. Using the EEOC’s averages, that’s 50 + 150 + 150 minutes, or about 5.8 hours a year, around $203 at $34.87 an hour ^[1]. Each branch it adds means another report under the current rule ^[1].

Hypothetical three: a 70-person landscaping company with a federal grounds contract. Federal contractors with 50 or more employees that meet certain criteria have been covered too ^{[1, 4]}. That obligation has had two homes. The EEO-1 started in 1966 as a joint form with the Labor Department’s contractor compliance office, and in July 2025 the Labor Department proposed rescinding its own contractor regulations, including the part containing its EEO-1 requirement ^[1]. If you’re in this group, both rulemakings matter to you.

If you have fewer than 100 employees and no federal contracts, you don’t file the EEO-1 now, and the proposal doesn’t change your filing picture ^[1].

One requirement stays either way. The proposal keeps the rule that employers preserve personnel records, such as applications and records of hiring, promotion, pay and termination, for one year, and longer when a charge has been filed ^[1].

What to do this month

Not much, and that’s the point. The proposal is a proposal, and the regulations requiring the reports remain in the Code of Federal Regulations until a final rule removes them ^{[1, 2]}. The EEOC says it has already finished collecting data for 2022, 2023 and 2024, the reporting years its current paperwork approval covers, and that approval expires Nov. 30, 2026 ^[1]. The proposal doesn’t say what happens to later reporting years.

So keep your payroll system’s EEO fields as they are. If you have a view on whether the report is worth the hours, this is the window to say so: comments go to regulations.gov under RIN 3046-AB37 and are due Aug. 24 ^[1].

What I’m keeping an eye on

The Aug. 11 hearing. The EEOC says it will post a transcript on its website afterward ^[2]. I’ll read it for anything specific to smaller filers.

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act references. The commission says it intends to fold changes it proposed in November 2024, adding PWFA references to the same regulations, into the final rule ^[1]. Watch for that when the final version comes out.

— Sally