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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released its 2024 Annual Performance Report (APR). The APR contains the EEOC’s program results, accomplishments, and management challenges for the fiscal year 2024. Overall, it presents the current results of EEOC efforts in its broader mission to prevent employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In fiscal year 2024, the EEOC faced another year of higher service demand, requiring efficient management of limited resources. Despite this challenge, the agency secured almost $700 million for over 21,000 victims of employment discrimination. Indeed, this was the highest monetary recovery in its recent history and substantially more than the agency’s $455 million budget. Earlier, in October 2024, the EEOC announced that an Atlanta, Georgia-based company would pay $3.1 million to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit.
Overview of the FY 2024 Annual Performance Report
In general, the 2024 Annual Performance Report communicates various performance results to the United States Executive and Legislative branches and the public. The APR includes an overview of EEOC programs, accomplishments, and challenges during the year. Sections within the 2024 APR discuss the following information:
- Agency and mission information
- Performance results
- Major management priorities and challenges and cross-agency collaborations
- Findings from official evaluations and other evidence-building efforts
FY 2024 Annual Performance Report Results
The EEOC focused on several major anti-discrimination areas in FY 2024. In brief, the Annual Performance Report addresses systemic discrimination of protected classes, the agency’s work towards advancing workplace racial justice, pay equity, and the potentially discriminatory use of artificial intelligence (AI) in employment decision-making. All in all, the EEOC cited an increasing demand for equal employment services in the U.S. in fiscal year 2024. The APR provides the following breakdown by the numbers:
- 88,531 new discrimination chargers (an increase of 9.2% compared to FY 2023)
- 553,000 calls (a 6% increase FY 2023)
- 5% more emails from the public than in FY 2023
EEOC Litigation in FY 2024
Alongside its 2024 Annual Performance Report, the EEOC also released its Office of General Counsel (OGC) Annual Report for FY 2024. The OGC’s report lays out the agency’s litigation achievements in detail. Specifically, the EEOC filed 111 employment discrimination lawsuits. In addition, the EEOC resolved 132 discrimination suits and 16 systemic suits. In total, the agency obtained just under $65 million in relief for 8,378 individuals. The OGC’s report includes lawsuit statistics and summaries of notable resolutions.
Employer Takeaways
In conclusion, employers will want to note the significant increase in charges (about 10% more in 2024) filed with the EEOC by employees alleging discrimination. They should examine their business’s hiring and firing practices to ensure they don’t discriminate against members of federally-protected classes. Likewise, employers should train employees and supervisors in anti-discrimination and workplace harassment.
To assist employers in training workers on forms of harassment and discrimination that could occur in the workplace, WorkWise Compliance created the Harassment & Discrimination Prevention Training eLearning Module for Employees. In addition to explaining harassment and discrimination, the training module describes preventing such actions and addresses ways to report complaints. For employers in California and New York, the following harassment and discrimination prevention trainings need to be utilized where appropriate:
