EEOC Issues its Report on Claims in 2020

A few days ago, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued its 2020 Enforcement and Litigation Data. It covers the fiscal year (10/1/2019 -9/30/2020), so its comprised of 6 months of non-COVID data and 6 months of COVID data.

The leading type of case brought by claimants? Retaliation. Almost 56% of the cases involved retaliation. The next most common was Disability at 36%

In its report, the EEOC announced that it secured almost $440 million in restitution/recovery from employers.

its merit resolution rate (ie: charges that are resolved pre-litigation in favor of the claimant) increased by almost 15% over the previous year.

Finally, the EEOC also reported that it filed 93 new discrimination lawsuits in this time period. It resolved a total of 165 lawsuits (which, obviously, would included cases filed before FY 2020) and recovered over $106 million It “achieved a successful outcome” in almost 96% of those lawsuits.

What’s the take away for a business owner? Be careful you don’t infringe upon your employees civil rights, particularly in terms of retaliation. If you fail to monitor this, the EEOC will be knocking at your door.

To read the full press release, click here.