EEO-1 Filing Issues for Contractors

By Angela Adams, CEBS, SPHR, Director, EEO & Compliance Solutions
Published November 14, 2023

If you’re a government contractor or subcontractor (“contractor”), you may be running into a bit of trouble filing the 2022 EEO-1 Report, which is due by December 5. The EEO-1 Report is an annual filing required of private sector employers with 100 or more employees or with 50 or more employees and a direct government contract or first-tier subcontract.

Why is there trouble? The U.S. government has stopped using the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) to identify federal contractors, and this field has been removed from the reporting system. Contractors must now use the Unique Entity ID (abbreviated as “UEI”) created in www.sam.gov. Some contractors are struggling to figure out whether they have a UEI. The General Services Administration posted a video on how to find a UEI. You can also request a UEI through the www.sam.gov site if you don’t have one.

To make things more confusing, if you have multiple establishments, you may have multiple UEIs, each associated with an individual business entity. There also may be some establishments that don’t have any contracts, and therefore don’t have a UEI at all. (Remember though, that the government considers all locations of an organization to be subject to the affirmative action regulations, even if it’s only one location that has a contract.)

The EEO-1 portal won’t let you finalize your filing until you provide the UEI for each establishment listed as a contractor. Make sure to give yourself plenty of time to find the UEI or to request one from www.sam.gov if you don’t have one.

If you’ve made good faith efforts to find your UEI(s) and aren’t successful, or you’ve requested one but haven’t heard back from the government, there is a workaround. Put UNAVAILABLE (all caps) in the UEI field, and it should go through. However, continue working on finding or getting your UEI for future years.

If you have questions, please contact the Affirmative Action team at HR Source at info@hrsource.org or 800-448-454.