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LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW — 02/08/10

New EEOC data show progress of women and minorities in private sector employment

On February 5, 2010, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) posted extensive new data on job patterns in the private sector, as part of the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative. The federal agency also launched its Open Government page, intended as a one-stop location for EEOC statistics and other performance-related materials. The new webpage will soon provide tools for the public to interact with the EEOC about information that the agency provides and the work it does. Eventually, the EEOC’s comprehensive Open Government Plan will be posted.

The EEOC posted 11 new aggregate data sets from the most recent edition of its Job Patterns for Minorities and Women in Private Industry, commonly known as the EEO-1 survey, on www.Data.gov and on its new Open Government page at http://www.eeoc.gov/open/. Employers with 100 or more employees must file the annual EEO-1 survey, as well as employers with federal government contracts of $50,000 or more and 50 or more employees.

New data. The most recent data sets contain comprehensive labor force profiles of race, gender and ethnicity divided by various job categories. According to the 2008 EEO-1 survey and historical data:

• Of the approximately 62 million private sector employees nationwide covered by the 2008 survey, about 30 million (48 percent) were women and 21 million (34 percent) were minorities.
• The rate of minority employment tripled between 1966 and 2008 from 11 percent to 34 percent.
• Among the four minority groups continuously measured, the employment rate for Black or African-Americans increased steadily from 8 percent in 1966 to 14 percent in 2008.
• Hispanics or Latinos had the fastest growth rate in the private sector, increasing from 2.5 percent to over 13 percent between 1966 and 2008.

• Women’s overall participation rate in the private sector jumped from 31 percent to 48 percent between 1966 and 2008.

In addition to information on race, gender, ethnicity and job categories, the EEO-1 survey also includes data on the size, location and industry of employer establishments.

The 2008 EEO-1 data extracts will be of use to the general public, researchers and academia, application and data infrastructure developers, and government agencies. Users may download the voluminous raw data sets for further examination and manipulation in a variety of ways, such as importing the data into spreadsheets, data bases, graphic presentations and statistical software programs.

“Posting the latest aggregate EEO-1 survey results on Data.gov is the first step in what will be a larger EEOC effort to advance the President’s goal of opening up our government and providing greater access to agency information and operations,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “We look forward to working with stakeholders as we create and implement our Open Government plan.”

The EEO-1 raw data extracts for 2008 may be downloaded at http://www.data.gov/catalog/raw/category/0/agency/119/filter/2008/type//sort//page/1/count/25. Additional EEO-1 data and information, including user-friendly html tables and historical data is located at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/jobpat-eeo1/index.cfm.

For more information on this and other topics, consult CCH Employment Practices Guide or CCH Labor Relations.

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