Legal Bulletins

Each year covered employers must file an EEO-1 report with the EEOC. The EEO-1 profiles an employer’s workforce by job category and by gender and race/ethnicity and presents a snapshot of the employer’s workforce based on employment data from a pay period between July and September selected by the employer.
Covered employers are those with more than 100 employees, federal contractors with more than 50 employees and contracts of $50,000 or more, and financial institutions which serve as a depositor of federal government funds in any amount or as an issuing or paying agent for U.S. savings bonds and notes.
The 2007 EEO-1 form, which must be filed by September 30, 2007, differs from the form used in previous years in two significant respects. As discussed below, the EEOC is requiring employers to use the revised form this year, but will allow employers to defer implementing the self-identification requirement for current employees and using the new race/ethnicity categories until filing the 2008 EEO-1 form.
Revised Job Categories
The revised job categories must be used in completing the EEO-1 form this year. The previous “Officials and Managers” category is now divided into two levels based on responsibility and influence within the organization. These two levels are:

• Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers. The EEOC states that these are individuals who “plan, direct and formulate policy, set strategy and provide overall direction; in larger organizations, within two reporting levels of CEO.”
• First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers. The EEOC defines these as individuals involved in the “direct implementation or operations within specific parameters set by Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers” and those who “oversee day-to-day operations.”

The revised EEO-1 form also moves certain business and financial occupations from the Officials and Managers category to the Professionals category.
Revised Racial/Ethnic Categories and Self-Identification
The other major changes in the EEO-1 form are the new racial and ethnic categories and the requirement that employees be given the opportunity to self-identify their race and ethnicity. In previous years employers completed the form without employee input by using visual observation or other records to identify the race and ethnicity of employees. Under the new regulations, employment records and visual identification may now be used only if an employee declines to self-identify.
The revised EEO-1 form changes the race and ethnicity categories by:

• Adding a new category titled “Two or more races”,
• Dividing “Asian or Pacific Islander” into two separate categories: “Asian” and “Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander”,
• Renaming “Black” as “Black or African American”, and
  Renaming “Hispanic” as “Hispanic or Latino”

The revised form also institutes a new two-step identification process. First, employees are asked to state whether they are “Hispanic or Latino,” which the EEOC defines as “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.” Second, employees who do not self-identify as “Hispanic or Latino” are asked to select a race or ethnic designation from one of six categories: “White,” “Black or African American,” “Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander,” “Asian,” “American Indian or Alaska Native,” or “Two or more races.”
Although the EEOC encourages employers to seek self-identification of new employees under the revised race and ethnicity categories as soon as possible, it will not require employers to do so for the 2007 EEO-1. Accordingly, this year, employers may submit the revised EEO-1 form with the new employment categories, and utilize the race and ethnicity categories used in prior years. We recommend that employers take advantage of this option. During the next year they should give their employees the opportunity to self-identify within the new race/ethnicity categories and analyze the demographic data before submitting the next EEO-1. This deferral is especially important for employers subject to compliance audits by the OFCCP.