Spring Deadline Alert: California Employee Data Reporting Requirements for Employers
It is that time of year again! The deadline to report your employee data for 2024 to the CA Civil Rights Department (CRD) is May 14, 2025.
Private employers with 100 or more employees in the United States and at least one employee in California must report pay and demographic information.
SB 1162 passed by the California Legislature in 2022 made some changes to the reporting requirements.
- Employers who employ 100 or more nationwide employees hired through labor contractors must now submit a separate report for those employees.
- A labor contractor employee is an individual on a labor contractor’s payroll who works for a client employer.
Labor contractor employees working within California or assigned to a California office of the client employer must be included in the report. - The 100 or more labor contractor employees are those hired among all the employers’ labor contractors, not per labor contractor.
- Additional information is required since the 2022 reporting year. The median and mean hourly rate for each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex within each job category must now be included in all reports.
- A labor contractor employee is an individual on a labor contractor’s payroll who works for a client employer.
- Employers with multiple establishments must submit a report for each establishment.
- Employers may no longer submit an EEO-1 report to satisfy their CA pay data reporting requirements.
- There have been race category changes:
- Added to the report is “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA). California Pay Data Reporting Handbook defines this category as “individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of the Middle East or North Africa, including, for example, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Israeli”
- The “two or more” races category has been changed to “Multiracial and/or Multiethnic”
- “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” is now “Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander”
Pay Reporting Portal and Templates
The Pay Reporting Portal and Templates employers should use to report their employee demographics and pay data have been updated from last year and are found on the CRD website. This website also includes a list of FAQ’s including the reporting requirements.
Double-Checking Your Employee Data
Now is a good time to double-check your employee data to ensure you have the required information so you will be able to submit your report. This includes:
- The number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex in 10 different job categories. (executive or senior-level officials and managers, first or mid-level officials and managers, professionals, technicians, sales workers, administrative support workers, craftworkers, operatives, laborers and helpers, service workers)
- The number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex whose annual earnings are within the pay bands used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The current pay bands can be found on page 4 of the Occupational Employment Statistics survey. The pay bands are also included on the Template provided by the CRD for submitting the information.
- The total number of hours worked by each employee plus the hours they were on any form of paid time off for which they were paid by the employer, such as vacation, sick, or holiday time.
Additional Information From the CRD
The CRD released guidance with some additional information:
- Employers must choose a single pay period between October 1 and December 31st of the prior calendar year. This will serve as their ‘Snapshot Period.’ (Hours and earnings should not be annualized if the employee did not work the full year)
- Employers should work with their labor contractors to determine the ‘SnapShot Period’ between October 1 and December 31st for those employees. It can be the same or different from the one used for the employer’s employees.
- Employers should report sex using three categories: female, male, and non-binary.
- Use Form W-2 Box 5 (Medicare wages and tips) to assign employees to the particular pay band. (If an employee does not have a Box 5, then use Box 1)
- For single establishment employers based in California, they should also include employees who are teleworking outside of California.
Multi-Establishment Guidance From the CRD
In addition, the CRD issued guidance for multiple-establishment employers to include:
- Employers should use the same establishments they use for their EEO-1 and assign employees to those same establishments for their California report.
- If an employer is a multiple-establishment employer with locations only in California, they should include all employees (including any employees teleworking outside of California)
- For multiple-establishment employers with locations inside and outside of California, the employer:
- Must report on its California establishments, all of its employees assigned to those locations (including any employees outside of California), and any California employees such as those working from home in California but assigned to an establishment outside of California.
- May report on all of its establishments and employees both inside and outside of California.
Don’t have the employee data you need and not sure how to go about collecting it? We can help! Contact us for practical ideas on gathering your employee’s data so you are not scrambling to put together your report on the deadline of May 14th. We can also help with putting the report together to give you time to focus on more important things such as running your business!
