Companies can now ask for an exemption from federal anti-discrimination reporting rules

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has changed its rules for how companies can ask for an exemption from federal anti-discrimination recordkeeping. The agency will now decide these requests itself and has published a list of reasons it might grant one.

Before this change, companies had no clear process for asking to be excused from reporting requirements, which meant they either complied or risked penalties. Now, the agency has a formal way to consider these requests. This could mean some companies will no longer have to report certain employment data, making it harder to track discrimination trends in those specific cases.