The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has recently released its charge statistics for fiscal year 2010 (which ended September 30, 2010). The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination, which includes Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

Not surprisingly, these statistics reveal a record-breaking number of charges of workplace discrimination filed against private sector employers in 2010. The number of charges filed hit 99,922, an unprecedented number which amounts to a more than 7% increase over the previous year’s filings. The somber economy and the accompanying layoffs in 2009 and 2010 may be behind this increase, as well as the EEOC’s expansion of educational training and other outreach efforts to approximately 250,000 persons.