KMK Law Management Rights Blog

The recently released 2012 EEOC enforcement statistics indicated an overall decrease in charges and increase in damages paid by employers.  Notably, for the second consecutive year, the EEOC reduced its pending inventory of private sector charges by 10% from fiscal year 2011, bringing inventory to 70,312.  However, the EEOC obtained the largest amount of monetary recovery in 2012, totaling $365.4 million.  Leading the states in originating charges was Texas at 9.0% of charges filed nationally, followed by Florida (8.0%) and California (7.4%). 

The leading three most frequently filed charges in 2012 were those of retaliation (37,836), race (33,512), and sex discrimination (30,356), which includes allegations of sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. 

The EEOC reports the following breakdown of its 2012 caseload:

• Retaliation: 38.1%
• Race: 33.7%
• Sex: 30.5%
• Disability: 26.5%
• Age: 23.0%
• National origin: 10.9%
• Religion: 3.8%
• Equal pay: 1.1%
• Genetic information: 0.3%

A comprehensive breakdown of the EEOC's enforcement statistics can be found on the EEOC's web site at http://eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/index.cfm.