In the United States, employment discrimination charges have been hitting record-high levels, especially during 2010 and 2011. It is expected that this is due partly to the recession, with so many people being laid off and competing with one another for jobs; many may feel as though they are being discriminated against. However, while discrimination charges increased within the nation, the employment discrimination cases dropped in 2011 for the state of Alabama.

Information provided by the United States Equal Opportunity Commission shows that just last year, just about 99,947 employment discrimination charges were filed. Within the previous year, in 2010, 99,922 employment discrimination charges were filed. This shows that for the United States as a whole, employment discrimination charges have increased within the span of a year. However, in the state of Alabama, employment discrimination charges dropped to 3,099 in 2011 from 3,449 in 2010. This was a decrease of just about 10 percent.

The agency director in Alabama, Delner Franklin-Thomas, believes that it can be difficult, at time, to figure out trends when it comes to complaints that have been made with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. However, she has said that the agency in which she represents has been working hard to prevent employment discrimination from occurring in the first place. She believes that the decrease in the employment discrimination cases can be credited to the enforcement efforts that have been made by the agency.

On the other hand, Jerry Rose, who worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for just about 22 years, says that he is not shocked that the employment discrimination charges have increased within the span of a year for the entire United States. He points out that when unemployment rates are higher than normal; employment discrimination changes are typically higher than normal as well. Rose says that history proves this.

In the United States, the jobless rate was fairly high for much of the year of 2011. By December, it had finally fallen to single digits, at 8.5 percent. Rose believes that the employment discrimination charges may have decreased in Alabama because their job market is doing a lot better than it was before, especially as the jobless rate continues to decrease in the state.

Rose claims that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges will match up with the unemployment rate. He says when unemployment rates decrease, so will the number of employment discrimination charges. He also points out that the unemployment rate in Alabama has been decreasing a lot faster than the unemployment rate for the United States as a whole, which is why the number of employment discrimination charges has decreased for the state of Alabama but not so much for the entire United States.