New York City Will Require Larger Employers To Report Employee Pay Data By Job, Gender And Race – Employee Rights/ Labour Relations

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The New York City Council recently voted to override the veto of
Mayor Eric Adams and pass two laws aimed at increasing pay equity
and transparency. These laws amend the administrative code of the
City of New York and will require private employers with 200 or
more employees in the City to annually report certain workforce
demographic data to the City.

What’s Required of Employers?

New York Int. No. 982-A requires employers to
annually report pay and hours data for their employees by job
category, sex, and race/ethnicity. New York Int. No. 984-A, passed on the same
day, provides that a designated City agency will conduct a pay
equity study based on the data submitted each year. By mandating
this data reporting and analysis, the City aims to identify and
address potential disparities in compensation related to gender,
race, and ethnicity.

New York City employers will submit this information using a
fillable, electronic form that the City will develop and provide.
While data may be submitted anonymously, employers will be required
to submit a separate, signed statement by an authorized agent
verifying the accuracy of the information submitted.

The data required by New York City mirrors the data formerly
required by the federal government’s EEO-1 Component 2 from the
2017 and 2018 reporting years. EEO-1 Component 1 requires reporting
of job category, sex, and race and ethnicity data for all
employees. EEO-1 Component 2 required submission of the same
information, to include detailed pay data.

While the federal government, through the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), still collects Component 1 data, it
has since stopped collecting Component 2 data.

Unlike the EEOC, which eliminated the option to include nonbinary
employees in EEO-1 reports this year, the City’s form is likely
to include an option for employers to account for different gender
identities in their reporting.

Employers who fail to comply with the law may be assessed civil
penalties of up to $1,000 for the first offense and $5,000 for
subsequent offenses. The City will publish a list of non-compliant
employers on its website.

When Must the Data be Submitted?

It may be months or years before employers are required to begin
reporting. That is, the mayor has up to one year to designate the
City agency to collect the data, and that agency has up to a year
to develop the form to collect the data. Employers will have up to
a year following the date the form is published to submit their
data.

What Will the City Do With the Data?

The agency collecting the data will conduct a pay equity study
each year, in collaboration with the New York City Commission on
Gender Equity and other agencies, to evaluate the data submitted by
employers and evaluate whether there are pay disparities based on
gender, race or ethnicity in a particular industry. The agency will
also identify trends in occupational segregation based on gender
and race or ethnicity. The agency will submit its findings to the
mayor and city council each year and will include recommendations
regarding employer action plans for addressing disparities. The
aggregate data will be published and made available to the
public.

Employer Takeaways

While mandatory reporting may not begin immediately, employers
should begin preparing. Employers should ensure that they are
keeping records of employee census data, including demographic and
pay information. Employers may also wish to conduct their own pay
equity study.

Ballard Spahr will continue to monitor developments from the
City.

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