The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) 2022 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection opens October 31, 2023. The EEO-1 Component 1 report is a mandatory annual data collection for all private sector employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors meeting certain criteria including having 50 or more employees. Additional reporting details and resources can be found here.

Reporting Tip: Non-Binary Employees

A continually confusing aspect of the reporting process for employers is how to report non-binary employees on the EEO-1 form. Since the current form only provides binary reporting options, employers who voluntarily choose to report demographic data for non-binary employees, must take additional steps.

If you are a single-establishment and choose to report demographic data for non-binary employees, you will report the data in the “Certification Comments” section of the form. Multi-establishment employers will add the data to the “Headquarters or Establishment-Level Comments” section(s).

According to EEOC guidance, any data added to the Comments should be prefaced with the phrase “Additional Non-Binary Employee Data:” (e.g., “Additional Non-Binary Employee Data: 1 non-binary employee in Job Category Administrative Support Workers; Race/Ethnicity: White (Not Hispanic or Latino). 3 non-binary employees in Job Category Professionals; Race/Ethnicity: Employee 1 – Black or African American (Not Hispanic or Latino) / Employee 2 – Hispanic or Latino / Employee 3 – Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino).”)

If the decision is made to report non-binary data in the Comments sections, employers must be mindful not to include non-binary-related data in any standard categories within the report (i.e., female/male, job category, race or ethnicity). This means that employees reported in the Comments sections will not be reflected in the totals for each of the individual reports.[i] For example, a single-establishment employer that has a total of 500 employees and is voluntarily reporting 2 of those employees as non-binary in the “Certification Comments” section will show an employee count of 498 employees on the “Single-Establishment Employer Report” (i.e., less the 2 non-binary employees reported in the comments section).

Additional information on reporting data for non-binary employees can be found in the 2022 EEO-1 Component 1 Data Collection Instruction Booklet (See the Reporting by Sex and Reporting by Race or Ethnicity sections).

[i] Non-binary employees are always counted when determining whether the employer meets overall threshold numbers for reporting purposes.