Discrimination stats contain potential positive news for CT employers, others

A federal agency recently released annual statistics for employment discrimination claims, delivering some potentially good news for employers. The billion-dollar question, however, is whether the promising trends will continue into the future or be reversed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

EEOC’s annual statistics

Among other things, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) handles discrimination complaints (which the agency refers to as “charges”) from employees. As a reminder, Connecticut has its own agency, the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO), also handling such complaints. Most Connecticut employees elect to file their complaints with the CHRO rather than the EEOC, but the federal agency is made aware of the state charges.

Every year the EEOC publishes statistics and data about the charges it received. The agency recently released data for its 2020 fiscal year (FY), which ended on September 30, 2020.

Is slight decrease good news?

The EEOC’s data contain some potential good news for employers. The number of discrimination charges the agency received in FY 2020 decreased slightly from FY 2019 (to 67,448 from 72,675). In Connecticut, the total number of charges likewise declined from 288 in 2019 to 218 in 2020.

While the decreases may seem small, any lower number of charges in 2020, a year that saw record layoffs and unemployment because of the pandemic, is welcome news. After all, layoffs usually lead to more discrimination claims, not fewer. Thus, the data are at least potentially good news.