California Announces Opening of 2021 Pay Data Reporting

Sacramento – The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) announced today that the 2021 Pay Data Reporting system is now open. California law requires private employers with 100 or more employees anywhere in the United States (and at least one employee in California) to annually submit data on the pay, hours worked, race/ethnicity, and sex of employees. Employers’ reports covering the 2021 calendar year are due by April 1, 2022.

“By requiring large employers to report pay data annually to DFEH, the California Legislature sought to encourage employers to themselves examine how they are compensating their employees in order to promote voluntary compliance with equal pay and anti-discrimination laws. In addition, employers’ pay data reports allow DFEH to more efficiently identify wage patterns and allow for effective enforcement of equal pay or anti-discrimination laws, when appropriate,” said DFEH Director Kevin Kish.

DFEH’s webpage for the pay data reporting system https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/paydatareporting/ links to:

• The online portal through which employers build their pay data reports and submit to DFEH;
• A user guide that provides detailed and illustrated instructions for using the portal;
• An Excel template and .CSV file example that employers can use to upload their establishmentlevel and employee-level data into the portal; and
• Answers to frequently asked questions.

For this year’s collection, DFEH has enhanced the portal to facilitate reporting by employers by, for example, allowing users to create employer profiles that can be utilized year after year. DFEH has also updated the pay bands that employers must use to reflect the most recent pay bands established by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Following California’s inaugural pay data collection last year under Senate Bill 973, DFEH is analyzing over 20,000 reports and expects to publish summary results in the coming months regarding California workers’ demographics and pay. DFEH is also notifying employers who failed to file their reports about their obligations under the law, and DFEH has authority to pursue enforcement actions in court to compel compliance with California’s pay data reporting law, California Government Code section 12999.