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EEOC Begins Collecting Data To Enforce Civil Rights Act

September 10, 2008

Washington DC - Starting this year, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is requiring employers to comply with new race/ethnicity categories when filling out the Employer Information Report.

The report is a government form that requires certain private employers in the United States to list the number of employees within each job group in the organization — from service workers and laborers to high-level executives — by race, ethnicity, gender and job category.

This annually updated information helps in the identification and prevention of unlawful discrimination practices in the workplace related to race, color, religion, national origin and sex.

The EEOC also uses the data to enforce the Civil Rights Act and detect employment patterns by tracking the representation of women and minorities in companies, industries and regions.

The best way to collect the information is to have employees voluntarily identify themselves with a certain race/ethnicity category, according to the EEOC.

However, employers must visually identify or refer to employment records to determine the race, ethnicity or gender of employees or job applicants in the event they decline to self-identify the aforementioned characteristics.

While Hispanics and Latinos have been moved to a separate category on the report, those who do not belong to this ethnic group must identify with one or more of the following groupings: white; black or African-American; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; Asian; American Indian or Alaska Native.

Certain private employers — government contractors or subcontractors that have 50 or more employees and a government contract or subcontract of a minimum of $50,000 — are required to file the report with the EEOC or the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs by Sept. 30.

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