By: Lily Kerr
On Tuesday, October 31, the EEOC’s portal for filing the annual EEO-1 report opened. All private employers with at least 100 employees will be required to submit data from the fourth quarter of 2022 by Tuesday, December 5th. Federal contractors with at least 50 employees will also be required to file an EEO-1 report. Although this year’s portal uses the same interface that was implemented two years ago, there have been several changes to the file specifications this year.
Unique Entity Identifier Required for Federal Contractors
One update impacts federal contractors. This change involves the addition of the Unique Entity Identifier (UEI). The 12-digit UEI replaces the longstanding 9-digit Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number in each filing. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has stated that the change was intended to make the process of obtaining entity identifiers for contractors easier by removing a third-party administrator (i.e., Dun & Bradstreet) from the process. Contractors can locate their UEI(s) within the System for Award Management (SAM) database. Additional information can be found on the following instructions page for “existing registered entities.”
The UEI for the headquarters establishment (if the headquarters has one) will be entered into the EEO-1 portal in the initial stages, along with confirming the company’s existing information (EIN, address, NAICS code, etc.). Additionally, UEIs can be entered for each establishment. The system will require UEIs for any establishment report that indicates “yes” to the question regarding Federal Contractor Designation (field 188). If “no” is indicated, the UEI field is optional. As a note, DUNS numbers were not a required field for past filings.
GSA’s website states that the requirement to have a UEI is “based on an entity being a separate legal entity associated with a separate physical address.” It is possible for an employer to have multiple UEIs if there are multiple legal entities under the parent company bidding or completing federal work. It is also possible for a single entity to have multiple UEIs for different physical addresses, but not a requirement. We recommend that employers research their UEIs through Sam.gov if they do not have that information. If federal contractors are unsure of which UEI they should use for a particular establishment, or are unable to obtain one, EEOC has recently clarified that the value “UNAVAILABLE” can be entered in the UEI field for the given establishment. Please consult the EEOC’s newly published FAQs for more information on UEIs.
Reporting on Establishments with Less Than 50 Employees
Another important update this year involves the process for filing reports on establishments that have less than 50 employees. Previously, employers could opt to file such locations as either Type 6 or Type 8 reports. Type 6 reports included only a listing of information about the establishment, whereas Type 8 reports included all underlying employee demographic data provided for each establishment with fewer than 50 employees. As a reminder, last year, the Type 6 reports were phased out, and were converted to the more detailed Type 8 reports for all employers. Beginning with the current filing this year (using 2022 data), the remaining types of reports (including types 3, 4, and 8) are being phased out as well. For existing establishments (i.e., included in the 2021 filing), contractors will still be able to upload data indicating report “type” for the 2022 filing, but any new establishment cannot include this information. See the EEO-1 file upload specifications for additional information. EEOC’s downloaded reports will show multi-establishment employers as having a Headquarters Report and Establishment-Level Reports regardless of the number of employees at each location.
Certification Comments
One other major update to the EEO-1 filing system this year appears in the reports downloaded from EEOC’s portal. In addition to general formatting changes, there is now a large field for optional “Certification Comments,” under Section K, also known as the “Official Certification of Submission.” This field takes up most of the second page of the downloaded reports and immediately follows the Consolidated Report on page 1. If a filer has comments regarding the general submission (that is, comments that are not location-specific), the filer can input these notes in the portal before certifying the filing. Any comments entered in the system will appear in the Section K field on the report. If there are no comments entered, the Section K field will simply read “No Certification Comments Provided.”
For more information on the upcoming filing, please visit https://www.eeocdata.org/EEO1. EEOC has published resources to aid filers as they navigate the portal, including an Instruction Booklet, FAQs, and File Specifications. As a reminder, the current EEO-1 form has only been approved for 1 year, and it is likely that further changes will be made for future EEO-1 reporting.
Stay tuned to the DCI Blog for timely updates on all things EEO-1s!
