According to the EEOC’s recently released statistics, the Commission received a record number of new employment discrimination charges last year. For fiscal year 2011, the Commission received 99,947 charges of employment discrimination. The Commission also obtained $455.6 million in relief, another record high. This is a $51 million increase from the previous year and continues the upward trend of the past three years.
The statistics provided by the EEOC offer employers some guidance on the hottest issues before the Commission right now:
• Charges alleging retaliation under all of the statutes enforced by the EEOC were the most numerous, accounting for 37.4% of all charges.
• The agency’s enforcement of disability claims under the ADA resulted in a total of $103.4 million of the total $455.6 million obtained.
• The most common alleged disabilities were back impairments, orthopedic impairments, depression, anxiety disorder and diabetes.
• 2011 was the first full fiscal year of the EEOC’s enforcement of the Genetic Nondiscrimination Information Act (GINA). Only 245 GINA charges were filed, none of which proceeded to litigation.
According to EmploymentLaw360, in a January 2012 speech to the New York State Bar Association, EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum discussed the growing number of EEOC cases alleging ADA violations in the service sector, particularly the healthcare and restaurant industries. The Commissioner cautioned employers in specific areas: one-size-fits-all attendance policies, medical questionnaires that are unrelated to the job at hand, and rescinding job offers strictly on the basis of disability. h/t Employment Law 360 (http://www.law360.com/employment/articles/303314?nl_pk=6f740239-75f3-4574-ac7d-3486fe3ce6dd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=employment)
The EEOC’s complete statistics can be found at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/index.cfm.
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