According to final enforcement numbers covering fiscal year (FY) 2022 (October 1, 2021 – September 30, 2022) posted by the Labor Department’s (DOL) Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), there was a substantial decrease in the level of enforcement activity by the agency as compared to FY 2021.
OFCCP completed 898 supply-and-service (i.e., non-construction) compliance evaluation audits in FY 2022,[1] compared to 1,234 audits completed in FY 2021, a 27.3% decline. The FY 2022 audit numbers are the lowest since FY 2018 during the Trump Administration, continuing a somewhat surprising trend of declining OFCCP enforcement activity that has occurred during the Biden Administration.
With regard to financial remedies, OFCCP obtained nearly $11.8 million for victims of discrimination last year, but again, this represents a more than 50% drop from FY 2021’s total of $26.4 million, and is also the lowest total since FY 2018.
OFCCP’s annual enforcement numbers are derived from a combination of three sources: (1) OFCCP’s online summary of its enforcement accomplishment data; (2) OFCCP’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Library, which summarizes completed Conciliation Agreements (CAs) by fiscal year; and (3) DOL’s Data Enforcement Data Catalog, which contains annual data from DOL’s various enforcement agencies, including OFCCP.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.