Employers Now Required to Record Race and Ethnicity

As of April 24, 2023, Law 14,553/2023 took effect, amending the Brazilian Statute of Racial Equality (Law 12,288/2010) to require employers to include a field for employees to indicate their self-identified racial or ethnic information, based on previously established groups, in administrative documents and records.

Among others, this measure affects the following documents: (i) employee admission and dismissal forms; (ii) work accident forms; (iii) registration forms of the National Employment System (Sistema Nacional de Emprego, “SINE”); (iv) the employer’s Annual Social Information Report (Relação Anual de Informações Sociais, “RAIS”); (v) documents related to the employees’ registration in the Brazilian Social Security System (Regime Geral de Previdência Social); and (vi) the survey questionnaires from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Fundação Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, “IBGE”).

The new legislation established that the categories should be based on the employees’ self-classification within previously established groups. Employers are encouraged to utilize the five categories used by IBGE for the purposes of classifying the Brazilian population in terms of race or color in their documents and records: (i) Afro-Brazilian; (ii) Multiracial; (iii) White; (iv) Indigenous; and (v) East Asian.¹

It is important to note that the new rule applies to both the public and private sectors, and that the survey of the percentage of occupation by ethnic and racial segments in the public sector will serve to supplement the Brazilian National Policy for the Promotion of Racial Equality (Política Nacional de Promoção da Igualdade Racial, “PNPIR”) based on IBGE surveys which shall be conducted every five years.

Finally, we highlight that the collection of racial information of employees can assist with the monitoring and development of internal policies to promote diversity and inclusion in the private sector.

¹ The categories were translated from the respective following racial categories officially used in Brazil: (i) preto; (ii) pardo; (iii) branco; (iv) indígena; and (v) amarelo.