Return to Home PageThe U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) was established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, with a mission of eradicating discrimination in the workplace. In the federal sector, EEOC enforces Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which prohibits employment discrimination against individuals 40 years of age and older; the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in compensation for substantially similar work under similar conditions; and Sections 501 and 505 of theRehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act), which prohibits employment discrimination against federal employees and applicants with disabilities and requires that reasonable accommodations be provided.
EEOC is charged with monitoring federal agency compliance with equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws and procedures, and reviewing and assessing the effect of agencies' compliance with requirements to maintain continuing affirmative employment programs to promote equal employment opportunity and to identify and eliminate barriers to equality of employment opportunity.
Equal Employment Opportunity Management Directive 715 (EEO MD-715), October 1, 2003, established standards for ensuring agencies develop and maintain model EEO programs. These standards will be used to measure and report on the status of the federal government's efforts to become a model employer. As detailed in MD-715, the six elements of a model EEO program are:
The FY 2004 Annual Report on the Federal Work Force, addressed to the President and Congress, presents work force profiles of the federal government and examines the agencies' EEO complaint processing activities. Included for the first time in this report is data on the participation rates by race, national origin and gender for: (1) persons who serve as supervisors and managers in agencies with 500 or more employees (Part II, Profiles for Selected Federal Agencies) and (2) specific components of certain large federal agencies found in Table XII of Appendix IV located at www.eeoc.gov. Also included for the first time is information on the timeliness of agency submissions of MD-715 and Form 462 reports (Appendix III). The report should provide valuable information to agencies as they strive to become model employers. This report covers the period from October 1, 2003, through September 30, 2004.
To prepare this report, the Commission relied on work force data obtained from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Central Personnel Data File (CDPF)(1), EEO complaint processing data submitted and certified as accurate by federal agencies, and hearings and appeals data obtained from EEOC's internal databases.
The Commission would like to extend its thanks to the Office of Personnel Management for providing the work force data from the CDPF and to those agencies which timely submitted accurate and verifiable EEO complaint processing data.
1. We have included additional data from the U.S. Postal Service, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which are not reported in the CDPF. It should be noted that, in certain instances, the CDPF data may not include some employees in non-pay status such as employees on extended military leave.
This page was last modified on April 19, 2005.