[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 148 (Tuesday, August 3, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Pages 42128-42130]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-19887]


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EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION


Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for OMB 
Review; Final Comment Request

AGENCY: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

ACTION: Final notice of submission for OMB review.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), the 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hereby gives notice that 
it has submitted the information collection described below to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

DATES: Written comments on this final notice must be submitted on or 
before September, 2, 1999.

ADDRESSES: Comments on this final notice should be submitted to the 
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Attention: Danny Werfel, 
Desk Officer for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 
Office of Management and Budget, 725 17th Street, NW, Room 10235, New 
Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 20503 or electronically 
mailed to [email protected]. Requests for copies of the proposed 
information collection request should be addressed to Mr. Neckere at 
the address below.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Joachim Neckere, Director, Program 
Research and Surveys Division, 1801 L Street, NW, Room 9222, 
Washington, DC 20507, (202) 663-4958 (voice) or (202) 663-7063 (TDD).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: A notice that EEOC would be submitting this 
request was published in the Federal Register on March 25, 1999, 
allowing for a 60-day public comment period. Two commenters responded.
    The first commentator stated that, although he was not concerned 
with the Commission's interpretation of the Uniform Guidelines on 
Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP) recordkeeping requirements, he 
believed that the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs' 
(OFCCP) interpretation and application of the UGESP recordkeeping 
provisions

[[Page 42129]]

placed an undue burden on federal contractors. The commentator asked 
EEOC to review OFCCP's interpretation. UGESP was jointly issued by the 
Commission, the predecessor of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management 
and the Departments of Justice and Labor. Each of those agencies uses 
the Guidelines in carrying out its own mission. We note that this 
commentator has submitted a similar observation to OMB in connection 
with a PRA notice published by OFCCP and that that particular PRA 
review by OMB has not yet been completed. Although that other matter is 
still pending, we nevertheless consulted with OFCCP as a result of the 
comment and are satisfied that OFCCP's interpretation is not 
inconsistent with the language of the Guidelines.
    The second commentator raised the same concern about OFCCP's 
interpretation of UGESP and also suggested that (1) the EEOC state 
whether the recordkeeping requirements of UGESP are mandatory and 
required of all companies obligated to file EEO-1 reports, and (2), if 
the UGESP recordkeeping requirements are mandatory, the Questions and 
Answers to the UGESP issued in 1979 (Q's & A's) also be submitted to 
OMB for approval. UGESP recordkeeping requirements are mandatory. See 
29 CFR 1607.4 and 1607.15 and 29 CFR 1607.16S (`` The term `should' as 
used in these guidelines is intended to connote action that is 
necessary to achieve compliance * * *''). They apply to all employers 
subject to Title VII, Executive Order 11246 and other EEO requirements 
of federal law, not just those employers who file EEO-1 reports. See 29 
CFR 1607.2 and 1607.15. The Q's & A's were published in 44 FR 11996 
(1979) and 45 FR 29530 (1980). They were issued as supplemental 
guidance to clarify and provide a common interpretation of the 
regulations; however, they do not alter the recordkeeping requirements 
in the regulations, and it would, therefore, not be appropriate to 
forward the Q's & A's to OMB for review. The Q's &A's are, however, 
part of the background information that has been submitted to OMB with 
the request for extension of the recordkeeping requirement in the 
regulations.

Overview of This Information Collection

    Collection Title: Recordkeeping Requirements of UGESP, 29 CFR 
1607.4 and .15.
    OMB Number: 3046-0017.
    Form Number: None.
    Frequency of Report: None required.
    Type of Respondent: Businesses or other institutions, state or 
local governments and farms.
    North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code: 
Multiple.
    Description of Affected Public: Any employer, labor organization, 
or employment agency covered by the federal equal employment 
opportunity laws.
    Responses: 666,000.
    Reporting Hours: 1,450,000.
    Number of Forms: None.
    Abstract: The records required to be maintained by 29 CFR 1607.4 
and 1607.15 are used by respondents to assure that they are complying 
with Title VII; by the Commission to investigate, conciliate and 
litigate charges of employment discrimination; and by complainants to 
establish violations of federal equal employment opportunity laws.
    Burden Statement: There are no reporting requirements associated 
with UGESP. Thus the only paperwork burden derives from the required 
recordkeeping. There are a total of 666,000 employers who have 15 or 
more employees and that are, therefore, subject to the recordkeeping 
requirement. Prior to the imposition of the UGESP recordkeeping 
requirement, the EEOC proposed to conduct a practical utility survey to 
obtain estimates of burden hours. The intended survey was not approved 
by OMB, however, and the Commission relied instead on data obtained 
from the Business Roundtable study on the Cost of Government Regulation 
conducted by the Arthur Anderson Company.
    In its initial estimate of the recordkeeping burden, the Commission 
relied on data from the study to derive the estimate of 1.91 million 
hours. In a subsequent submission for clearance of the UGESP 
collection, the Commission made an adjustment to reflect the increase 
in the incidence of computerized recordkeeping that resulted in a 
reduction of total burden hours of approximately 300,000, and brought 
the total burden down to 1.6 million hours.
    In the calculation of the initial burden of UGESP compliance, the 
estimated number of employees covered by the guidelines was 71.1 
million. Average cost per employee was taken to be $1.79. Since most of 
this cost, however, was for employers' administrative functions and 
represented the time spent in reviewing their selection processes for 
``adverse impact'' and in reviewing and validating their testing 
procedures, the actual recordkeeping function was estimated to be in 
the range of 10 to 15 percent of the total per-employee cost, or 
between $.179 and $.2685 per employee.
    In the initial estimate, the Commission used the higher end of the 
range, but subsequently adopted the midpoint of the range, $.22 per 
employee, as a better estimate. The number of employees also increased 
by 15 million since the initial estimate, so that there are now 86 
million employees subject to UGESP. In addition, from the private 
employer survey the Commission has been conducting for past 30 years 
(EEO-1), it is aware that 29.7 percent of the private employers file 
their employment reports on magnetic tapes, on diskettes, or on 
computer printouts. Thus, at a minimum, that proportion of employers 
has computerized recordkeeping. From the same survey the Commission 
also has learned that when records are computerized, the burden hours 
for reporting, and thus for recordkeeping are about one-fifth of the 
burden hours associated with non-computerized records. Therefore, the 
Commission's current estimate of recordkeeping burden hours is as 
follows:

Computerized recordkeepers..  (.29)  x  86mil  x  ($.044) =   $1,097,360
All other recordkeepers.....   (.71)  x  86mil  x  ($.22) =  $13,433,200
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    Total recordkeeping cost  .............................  $14,530,560
 

    Total Burden Hours are then computed by dividing the total cost of 
recordkeeping by $10, the hours rate of staff recordkeepers. The total 
estimate of burden hours associated with the UGESP recordkeeping then 
is 1.45 million hours. Assumptions made in deriving the estimate are as 
follows:
    Cost per employee for computerized records is $.044 *
    Hourly rate of pay for recordkeeping staff is $10.00 **

    * Both of these are derived from a private employer study.
    ** To the extent that this is an underestimate, the reporting 
burden is overestimated.

    Dated: July 28, 1999.


[[Page 42130]]


    For the Commission.
Ida L. Castro,
Chairwoman.
[FR Doc. 99-19887 Filed 8-2-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6570-01-M