End of an Era? EEOC Votes to Scrap 60-Year-Old Demographic Reporting Requirements

On July 21, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted to approve a draft notice of proposed rulemaking that would rescind the EEO-1 report and related demographic data reporting requirements, ending an obligation that has been a fixture of federal employment compliance for six decades. While the proposal must still navigate the notice-and-comment process before becoming final, the commission’s vote marks a decisive step toward eliminating one of employers’ longest-standing federal reporting obligations. Employers and employment counsel should understand what this means (and what it doesn’t mean) for their compliance posture going forward.