As part of an employer’s EEO compliance efforts, minimizing the risk of harassment claims should be a top priority. Recent statistics issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) indicate that the number of harassment charges has continued to spike upward over the past several years, including the monetary recovery for such claims.

On May 15, 2024, the EEOC issued its annual statistics on charge activity, which indicated the following:

• Total harassment charges climbed from 21,270 in FY 2021 to 24,430 in FY 2022 to 31,354 in FY 2023, thus increasing over 47% in the past three years. Monetary recoveries also dramatically increased during this period. The monetary recovery went from $142.2 million in FY 2021 to $144.1 million in FY 2022 to $202.2 million in FY 2023.

• Sexual harassment charges increased from 5,581 in FY 2021 to 6,201 in FY 2022 to 7,732 in FY 2023. Monetary recovery remained relatively constant, going from $61.6 million to $59 million to $60.6 million during these three fiscal years.

• Race harassment charges grew from 7,755 in FY 2021 to 8,524 in FY 2022 to 11,720 in FY 2023. Monetary recovery increased most dramatically in this area, going from $38.8 million to $34.1 million to $75.4 million during these three fiscal years.

On April 29, 2024, the EEOC also released the long-anticipated update to its enforcement guidance on harassment in the workplace. The guidance provides a legal analysis of the standards for harassment and employer liability involving harassment based on the EEO statutes enforced by the EEOC. The 2024 guidance replaces five prior guidance documents on workplace harassment issued by the agency between 1987 and 1999. In its rollout of the guidance, the EEOC highlighted that since that time, a number of notable changes in the law have occurred, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, in which the Supreme Court held that Title VII’s prohibition on discrimination “because of sex” extended to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The agency also noted that the emergence of new issues, such as online harassment, justified its update.

The recent guidance on harassment was issued on the heels of two important EEOC publications: (1) the EEOC’s Strategic Enforcement Plan for 2024-2028, which identified “Preventing and Remedying Systemic Harassment” as one of the agency’s six priorities; and (2) the EEOC’s 2023 Annual Performance Report, which reported on the EEOC’s charge activities and litigation during FY 2023.

This Littler Report initially focuses on harassment prevention strategies, relying on guidance provided by the EEOC’s Task Force Report on Harassment. The Report then turns to a detailed review of the EEOC’s recently issued guidance in discussing the potential scope of actionable harassment claims and employer liability standards that the EEOC will rely on when an employer is faced with a harassment claim. The final section of the Report is devoted to a discussion of harassment investigations and related systemic harassment litigation by the EEOC.

Click here to read the full Littler Report.