The Commission for Employment Equity reports are an important source of data on changes in the South African labour market. A quantitative comparison of the Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) reports, which is based on a sample of responding firms, and the nationally representative household survey data in the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series (PALMS) is undertaken in this paper. The comparison is motivated by low compliance rates with the Employment Equity Act and the changing sample of firms that are included in each CEE report. The comparison suggests that the CEE reports overstate the extent of demographic transformation in the workforce between 2002 and 2015. The discrepancies observed are partially explained by differences in the sample of firms in the CEE data over time. Differences in the meaning of the size of the firm in PALMS and the CEE are also part of the explanation. The findings in the paper have implications for the future use of CEE reports in analysis, for the CEE itself in improving employment equity data collection, and for future research aiming to assess workforce transformation in the South African labour force over time.