Starting this year, Employers of 100 or more employees with at least one employee in California, are required to send employee pay data to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). A private employer is subject to California’s pay data reporting requirement if it is required to file an annual EEO-1 with the EEOC. The purpose of this law is to encourage employers to self-assess pay disparities along gendered, racial, and ethnic lines and promote voluntary compliance with equal pay and anti-discrimination laws.
The California Pay Data report is due with the DFEH by March 31, and annually thereafter. The report will cover the previous calendar year (January through December, referred to as the reporting year). The DFEH has created an online portal where employers are required to submit their data. A User Guide, Report Template, and helpful FAQ page are also available on the DFEH’s pay data reporting website.
An employer may receive an enforcement deferral until April 30, 2021 to file its Pay Data Report, however the employer must submit the deferral request by March 31, 2021. The “Enforcement Deferral Request” link is located on the California Pay Data Reporting website page.
This reporting is required under Government Code section 12999 enacted in SB 973. SB 973 was enacted on September 30, 2020, and the file formats were recently released in February 2021. This filing is similar to EEO-1 Component 2 data.
An employer is considered to have 100 employees if it either employed 100 or more employees during the “snapshot period” or it regularly employed 100 or more employees in the reporting year. The “snapshot period” is any pay period the employer chooses between October 1 and December 31 of the reporting year—employers only need to provide pay data for employees who were employed during the snapshot period.
An employer with fewer than 100 employees is required to file with DFEH if the company is owned or affiliated with another company, or there is centralized ownership, control or management (such as central control of personnel policies and labor relations) so that the group legally constitutes a single enterprise, and the entire enterprise employs a total of 100 or more employees. If a parent company and its subsidiaries do not constitute a single legal entity, each separate company must file a separate report. Important information is available on the DFEH’s pay data reporting webpage.
The User Guide, file format, deferral request, and FAQS can be viewed on the DFEH website: https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/paydatareporting/
California Payroll has a CA Pay Reporting Utility to assist with this new state filing requirement. Contact us today to find out more!
