EEOC votes to stop collecting race and sex data on U.S. workers

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has voted 2-1 to initiate the removal of a 60-year-old federal requirement. This rule currently mandates that companies with 100 or more employees submit annual reports detailing the race, ethnicity, and sex of their workforce.

Commission officials argue that this data collection is not explicitly required under Title VII of the federal civil rights law. The agency statement suggests that such collection may raise constitutional concerns and characterizes the process as unnecessary for statutory enforcement. The EEOC notes that the current reporting system places a $275 million burden on the private sector annually, with the agency itself spending roughly $4 million in administrative costs to manage the submissions.

This proposal marks a shift in how federal regulators oversee corporate demographic metrics. Critics of the decision argue that the loss of this aggregate data will impede the ability of researchers and legal teams to track workplace trends or identify systemic barriers in hiring and promotions. Advocates maintain that transparency is essential for understanding equity within the American labor market and that internal records alone cannot replace the utility of standardized, public-facing reports.

While the commission has moved to publish a proposed rule for public comment, the change is not yet final. Employment law experts advise companies to maintain their internal data collection processes for the time being. This precaution accounts for potential state-level reporting mandates and the reality that demographic information remains standard evidence in discrimination litigation. Firms that stop tracking these metrics now may face significant costs if they are required to reconstruct such data for legal defense purposes in the future.