The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released its final enforcement and litigation statistics for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 (October 1, 2019 – September 30, 2020). Notably, the 67,448 charges of discrimination received by the agency represented the lowest total in nearly 30 years, and marked the fourth year in a row that the number of charges filed has gone down.
Consistent with recent years, claims of unlawful retaliation were the most common allegation raised in FY 2020 – more than half of all charge filings (55.8%) asserted a retaliation claim. Indeed, this is the highest percentage for any single charge allegation basis ever recorded at the EEOC. Unlawful retaliation claims were followed by charges alleging disability discrimination at number two and unlawful harassment claims at number three. Worth noting, the percentage of disability discrimination charges filed rose for the twelfth straight year.
Charges of race discrimination, which for many years were the most common claim, came in at fourth, closely followed by charges of sex discrimination. On the low end, about one in every five charges alleged age discrimination, while charges alleging national origin, color, pregnancy, equal pay, religion, and genetic discrimination all came in at under 10%.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.