The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency tasked with “enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee,” has released data outlining the prevalence of charges alleging both retaliation and workplace discrimination for fiscal year 2014.
As always, the results were truly eye opening.
Breaking the numbers down, the five most common types of charges submitted to the EEOC in fiscal year 2014, which ran from October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2014, included:
- Retaliation: 42.8 percent of all charges
- Race discrimination: 35 percent of all charges
- Sex discrimination (including pregnancy and sexual harassment): 29.3 percent of all charges.
- Disability discrimination: 28.6 percent of all charges
- Age discrimination: 23.2 percent of all charges
The EEOC data also revealed the five most common types of charges filed here in Minnesota:
- Retaliation: 57.8 percent of all charges
- Disability discrimination: 38.3 percent of all charges
- Race discrimination: 36.7 percent of all charges
- Age discrimination: 27.1 percent of all charges
- Sex discrimination (including pregnancy and sexual harassment): 26.5 percent of all charges.
Numbers like these unfortunately demonstrate that both employment discrimination and retaliation continue to persist throughout the U.S. — and very close to home — despite efforts to get employers to change their behavior.
When the unthinkable happens and you realize that you’ve lost your job because of clearly discriminatory or retaliatory actions on the part of your employer, it can be very difficult to process and even accept. However, it’s extremely important to remember that you do have options for righting this wrong and holding your employer legally accountable for their actions.
To learn more about these options, please visit our website.