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The EEOC had been unable to vote on substantial policy changes since January, when President Donald Trump terminated two Democratic commissioners before their terms were set to expire.

The E-Verify system, temporarily unavailable during the first week of the government shutdown, resumed operations on October 9. U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services offered guidelines for employers on handling new hires who came on when the service was offline.

According to the Department of Justice, employers must allow remote work as a religious accommodation even if they have switched back to a full in-office schedule or never allowed remote work at all. That’s the gist of the DOJ’s Sept. 18 internal guidance for federal agencies that are supposed to be bringing all federal workers back to the office.

The Protect Older Job Applicants Act is aimed at providing older applicants with stronger protections in hiring than currently exist under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

Effective Sept. 30, the EEOC has closed its processing of cases where the basis for the complaint is an allegation that an employer’s practices or policies have a disparate impact on members of a protected class. These are cases where the employer isn’t accused of intentional discrimination, but the policy or practice impacts a protected class more than it impacts other applicants or employers.

With the government shutdown that began at midnight Oct. 1, some services may be temporarily unavailable. That includes the use of the E-Verify system for employers that participate. However, that does not mean employers can have new employees start work without gathering necessary documentation to verify that the new employee is legally authorized to work in the U.S.

For decades, the EEOC has taken the position that employers can be liable for sexual harassment by third parties like customers and clients if they knew or should have known that the harassment was taking place but didn’t take steps to stop it. Now, a recent federal appeals court has ruled that the EEOC’s position isn’t valid and the only way an employer can be held liable for third-party harassment is if it intended for the harassment to occur.

At the recent HR Specialist Summit held September 10–11, Anniken Davenport, HR Employment Law Advisor senior legal editor, addressed the top employment law trends of 2025 and what’s coming in 2026.

We have an employee placed on unpaid suspension for failure to complete background-check requirements. They are working on completion, but they could be off one to two weeks. I’m wondering which of these options would be best practice.

Employers increasingly face scrutiny over the use of credit history in hiring—a practice critics argue has little to do with job performance but a lot to do with discrimination. A new proposal in Congress seeks to change that.