The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed at least 10 actions against staffing agencies for hiring discrimination in its just-closed fiscal year, following through on a broader promise to crack down on “non-traditional” employment arrangements that may carry into its next enforcement plan.
The EEOC’s enforcement surge comes as staffing and temp agencies are called on to fill gaps in a tight labor market. Staffing agency sales jumped by 20% in 2021 after a dip during the initial Covid-19 lockdowns, according to the American Staffing Association.
The presence of a “middleman” in the form of a staffing agency can make bringing a discriminatory hiring case under state or federal law challenging, in part because workers placed through agencies are often unaccounted for on EEO-1 disclosures and have little visibility into the jobs for which they’ve been considered.
But both the EEOC and private plaintiffs are still finding ways to target staffing firms, at times even bringing their clients into the fray.
“Using a temporary agency to hire workers isn’t a get out of jail free card for employers,” said Christina Wabiszewski, an attorney at Foley & Lardner LLP.
The EEOC’s current strategic enforcement plan prioritizes “issues related to complex employment relationships and structures,” while “focusing specifically on temporary workers,...
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