In a much-anticipated move, the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has directed the Acting Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to suspend implementation of the EEOC’s revised EEO-1 report, which included detailed pay reporting obligations.

Prior to this directive issued on August 29, 2017, employers were scheduled to make their first pay disclosures under the revised EEO-1 report by March 31, 2018. Now, no pay disclosures will be required. Employers will use the previous version of the EEO-1 form for Fiscal Year 2017 reporting. OIRA did not change the date of this filing. The report will be due by March 31, 2018. Details about the EEO-1 form can be found at https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/eeo1survey/about.cfm.

The OIRA memorandum notes that certain aspects of the revised EEO-1 report “lack practical utility, are unnecessarily burdensome, and do not adequately address privacy and confidentiality issues.” OIRA directed the EEOC to submit a new information collection package for OMB’s review and to publish in the Federal Register a notice stating the revised EEO-1 report is suspended and employers are permitted to use the previously approved EEO-1 form to comply with their FY 2017 reporting obligations.

This puts an end to the EEOC’s multi-year effort under the Obama Administration to collect employer pay information and hours worked data to launch targeted pay discrimination investigations. This is a welcome development for employers due to concerns regarding the significant burden in time and cost of collecting and reporting pay information, as well as confidentiality concerns that were never sufficiently addressed by the EEOC.