Health and safety failures, sex discrimination, wage theft, and illegally employing foreign workers emerge as top risks facing employers in 2025. Lexology PRO examines employment enforcement data to identify key risks and trends for businesses.
The data in this article is based on Lexology PRO’s Scanner, our automated regulatory monitoring tool covering 18 regulatory areas and tracking over 1500 regulatory sources. Full details on Scanner’s regulatory coverage can be found here. Some data referenced in this article has been sourced directly from regulators.
Enforcement in this series includes any action regulators have taken as part of their enforcement powers, including active investigations, audits, decisions, fines, penalties, settlements, and/or orders. This report covers data – primarily agency announcements – released between 1 November 2024 and 1 November 2025.
What offences did the most active enforcement agencies target?
Employment enforcement remained strong across major jurisdictions over the past year. Our data highlights the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as leading actors, with Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman, Hong Kong’s Labour Department, Brazil’s Ministry of Labour and Employment, and Finland’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration also driving significant enforcement actions globally.
The violations targeted by these regulators speak to their respective focuses. The EEOC concentrated entirely on discrimination and harassment cases, while the UK’s HSE addressed occupational safety infractions. Australia’s FWO primarily addressed violations related to wages and hours, while Brazil’s Ministry of Labour (MTE) predominantly tackled modern slavery and exploitation offences, particularly of children and vulnerable people.
A less common but recurrent violation globally addressed companies’ misclassification of workers. Notably, in September 2025 ridesharing service Lyft was ordered to pay more than US$19.4 million to the state of New Jersey, after an audit by that state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development found it had misclassified more than 100,000 drivers as independent contractors between 2014 and 2017, denying them essential benefits like unemployment, disability, and family leave.
Companies pay a high price for non-compliance with obligations towards their employees. Regulators handed down steep penalties for infractions, as well as utilising costly stop-work orders and even pursuing criminal charges.
EEOC prioritised sex and pregnancy discrimination enforcement
EEOC litigation activity was at a historic, ten-year low in 2025 – without a quorum until October 2025, the commission only voted on 69 matters in fiscal year (FY) 2025, compared to 135 in FY 2024.
The EEOC’s investigatory track record in 2025 showed sex and pregnancy discrimination claims – identified as a priority area by Chair Andrea Lucas – constituted the biggest chunk of litigation, followed by cases policing violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990. In September 2025, the EEOC reached a US$460,000 settlement with East Jordan Plastics over sexual harassment of female employees; the settlement included workplace reforms, including anti-harassment training and annual reporting to the EEOC.
Around one in 10 of the claims pursued by the EEOC addressed religious discrimination, including Columbia University’s US$221 million settlement to resolve charges of harassment against Jewish employees post-7 October 2023 – the largest EEOC public settlement in almost 20 years.
No cases pursued by the EEOC in 2025 addressed LGBTQ or gender identity-related issues, in line with Trump’s executive order – which bound federal agencies to rescind guidance contradicting the Trump administration’s sole recognition of biological sex – and Lucas’ own views on access to sex-segregated spaces.
Other US regulators also pursued discrimination offences. The Department of Justice investigated multiple universities – including George Mason University and the University of California – for violations of the Civil Rights Act 1964, addressing potentially discriminatory employment practices based on race and sex designed to promote diversity.
Health and safety violations fuel regulator enforcement
Health and safety infractions were a key focus for the most active regulators. Our data indicates these regulators tended to enforce most strongly if there was an immediate risk of workers being seriously hurt or killed. Around 85% of the infractions targeted by Hong Kong’s Labor Department cited fatal workplace accidents – including a HK$200,000 (US$25,700) penalty for Man Cheong Transport Company after a worker died during the unsafe removal of heavy equipment at the Yau Ma Tei cargo terminal.
Many of the health and safety violations policed by regulators were in the construction and manufacturing sectors, where working conditions can be acutely dangerous. The UK’s HSE, for example, fined Tata Steel £1.5 million (US$1,749,160) after a contractor was crushed to death by a large piece of machinery at its Port Talbot steelworks plant.
A cluster of enforcement actions concentrated on systemic management failures that created room for safety failures, such as inadequate risk assessments, lack of training and safe procedures, and poor planning of potentially dangerous practices (such as working at height). The UK HSE fined waste management company Biffa almost £2.5 million (US$3.3 million) after a worker was crushed by a skip wagon, finding it lacked sufficient measures to protect pedestrians from moving vehicles movements.
FWO doubles down on wage theft and underpayment
Almost all the Australian FWO’s enforcement activity (97%) concerned wage and working hours violations, despite the agency also having jurisdiction over other offences, including harassment and discrimination. The most common breaches included underpaying wages, failing to compensate employees for hours worked beyond standard schedules, and failing to maintain accurate records of hours worked, wages paid, and leave taken.
Enforcement activity by Australia’s FWO intensified throughout 2025
Click here to read Lexology PRO’s analysis of a year of FWO's enforcement activity and what companies should expect in 2026.
Much of the FWO’s focus was on sectors with vulnerable workforces and high volumes of casual or migrant workers, such as hospitality and construction. The agency handed companies significant penalties for failures in wage compliance, record-keeping, and minimum entitlements.
In September 2025, the FWO carried out surprise inspections of 45 food outlets in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, and Cairns to enforce compliance with record-keeping and payslip requirements under the Fair Work Act 2009.
Elsewhere, enforcement actions citing wage and working hours violations accounted for more than a third of the Netherlands Labour Authority’s enforcement activity. In January 2025 the inspectorate handed down a €600,000 (US$700,000) penalty to a transport company for violating Dutch minimum wage and holiday allowance legislation.
Illegal employment of foreign workers emerges as a compliance threat
Several regulators prosecuted employers exploiting migrant workers. This trend was evident in Germany, where the Federal Customs Service carried out multiple sweeps, particularly across catering businesses and nail salons. In April 2025, prosecutors convicted the operators of a nail salon and catering business of commercial smuggling, seizing €44,000 (US$51,308) in compensation.
The Netherlands Labour Authority also cracked down on illegal employment. In October 2025, it fined two local companies and a Polish employment agency a combined €432,000 (US$503,755) for violating the Foreign Nationals Employment Act 2024 by employing 32 third-country nationals without valid work permits.
Tackling illegal working was also a priority for the UK in 2025. In April 2025, the Home Office released new guidance for employers on right to work checks, amid an extension of compliance obligations to cover the gig economy.
Brazil addresses exploitative working conditions
The majority of the enforcement actions pursued by Brazil’s MTE addressed modern slavery and exploitative working conditions.
In July 2025, the MTE rescued 563 workers exploited at a sugarcane plant in Mato Grosso, ultimately reaching a conduct adjustment agreement with their employer to compensate the workers and prevent further violations. In September 2025, a task force including the MTE and federal police rescued 108 workers subjected to slave-like conditions at an ethanol plant in Goiás.
What can businesses expect from employment enforcement in 2026 and beyond?
Expanded worker rights
The UK is poised for the most significant overhaul of its employment law in decades, through the staggered implementation of the Employment Rights Bill. Among other major changes, the legislative expansion of worker rights will strengthen the rights of zero-hours workers, eliminate “fire and rehire” practices, and expand employer obligations to prevent harassment. From April 2026, a new Fair Work Agency will have substantial powers to investigate and sanction companies for employment rights violations.
Platform workers stand to gain enhanced protections under the EU Platform Workers Directive 2024/2831, which introduces the presumption of employment. Member states have until 2 December 2026 to transpose the directive, although some countries already have employment presumptions in place.
Broader definition of health and safety
Global regulators are increasingly addressing work-related stress and mental health as safety issues by formalising psychosocial risk frameworks. New regulations in Australia as of 1 December 2025 implement granular compliance requirements for companies in Victoria to protect workers’ mental health. Brazil is pursuing a similar approach, with employers required to conduct mental health risk assessments and implement corrective measures where hazards are detected.
Global pay transparency measures
Under the EU Pay Transparency Directive 2023/970 – which EU member states are required to transpose into national law by 7 June 2026 – employers must disclose pay information, justify disparities, and ensure pay equity across male and female employees.
Expanding pay transparency laws are reshaping employer obligations in the US too. Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, and Massachusetts all enacted pay transparency laws in 2025, bringing the number of states with this type of legislation to 16. These laws have varying definitions, penalties, and posting requirements, creating challenges for multi-state and remote employers.
Elsewhere, South Africa is proposing a Fair Pay Bill mandating pay transparency across all job postings.
A more complex discrimination landscape
The EEOC is expected to rescind the gender identity portions of its 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. Once the agency takes this step, US employers can expect to see federal enforcement against gender identity harassment slow or, likely, stop. Another priority for the EEOC will be enforcement of anti-discrimination laws against employers who favour “non-American workers”, and possibly changes to its 2024 rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act 2022.
AI: a new enforcement frontier?
The increasing application of AI tools creates new risks for businesses. AI surveillance gives granular productivity data but exposes companies to legal and ethical risks, while AI-powered hiring and workplace management systems can breach anti-discrimination and “high risk” AI rules. As AI adoption contributes to mass layoffs worldwide, employers handling redundancies poorly risk unfair dismissal claims and discrimination lawsuits.