This is the final story in "The invisible workforce," an NJ Advance Media special report on New Jersey's temp industry.

The job seemed simple.

Three years ago, Latisha DeSota was hired by New Jersey-based Lyneer Staffing Solutions to help open a branch of the temporary employment agency in Georgia.

Her assignment was to help hire temporary workers for positions in a local package-sorting warehouse. There were plenty of applicants -- nearly 95 the first day.

But DeSota alleges she soon ran into a problem. Her supervisors seemed to prefer to hire Hispanic workers for the temp positions, she said in a lawsuit. African-American applicants were either turned away before they filled out applications or were passed over for warehouse positions.

"We don't want ghetto people" and "We don't want thugs," DeSota's supervisor at Lyneer allegedly told her, according to the lawsuit she filed against the New Jersey company in 2014.

After DeSota, who is African-American, questioned whether Lyneer was hiring temps based on race, she was fired, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was settled out of court last year. Neither DeSota nor Lyneer, which is based in Lawrenceville, would comment.

The suit is one of dozens filed by applicants, recruiters, employees and other whistleblowers at temp agencies across the nation in recent years, according to a review by NJ Advance Media with the assistance of Reveal for The Center for Investigative Reporting, a California-based nonprofit media organization.

Many lawsuits alleged widespread racist, sexist or discriminatory hiring in the growing temp industry. In some cases, factories or companies allegedly placed orders for temps of certain races, and temp agency recruiters complied because they said they felt financial pressure to keep their clients happy.

In some cases, temp agencies allegedly used code words to indicate a preference for applicants of a certain race or gender.

According to the allegations in lawsuits and interviews:

At an Illinois temp agency, "code 3" meant a Latino worker. At a Texas agency, "blue eyes" signified a white worker was needed. In Seattle, an agency requested "no Mohammeds" when a client didn't want temps of Middle Eastern descent.

In Ohio, temp agency supervisors requested "vanilla cupcakes" or "hockey players" when a company wanted a white temp. In Florida, construction contractors said, "Don't send me any more monkeys" when they didn't want black workers.

Other codes were more subtle. In Oklahoma, a temp agency marked applications with a dot for black workers, a circle for Hispanic applicants and an X for Indian applicants, according to one court case. In other cases, requests for "heavies" allegedly denoted temp jobs for men while "small hands" was code that the client wanted female temps.

It is unclear how widespread alleged hiring discrimination is in the industry. Scholars say the temp workforce is exploding, but there has been little oversight.

"It's sort of like no one was paying attention when all of this was going on," said Carmen Martino, professor of professional practice at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations.

Federal regulators say it is difficult to track whether agencies are violating employment discrimination laws due to the nature of the industry.

There are more than 3 million temp workers nationwide, an all-time high, according to federal statistics. Because many temps are hired on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis in jobs that require little education or skill, applicants often have no indication why they are selected or passed over for a job.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces job discrimination laws, has taken some temp agencies to court when it has found evidence of hiring based on race or gender.

But the cases are difficult, said Raechel Adams, the EEOC's acting regional attorney.

"Often what's going on is applicants are being turned away," Adams said. "Applicants are not really in a position to know why."

Without documents or hard evidence, the cases are difficult to prove. The EEOC has not taken any temp agencies in New Jersey to court, Adams said.

"It's hard for us to kind of find a hook to pursue a staffing agency," Adams said.

In June, the EEOC sued Automation Personnel Services, an Alabama-based temp agency with branches from California to Florida. One of the agency's branch managers allegedly told a female applicant she could not get an application for a position in a fiberglass factory in Louisiana in 2012 because "this is a man's job" and the job is "not suitable for women," according to the EEOC's lawsuit.

The temp agency hired 54 men and one woman to work in the factory, the EEOC said.

Though the EEOC received the complaint about gender discrimination in Automation's hiring in 2012, the agency did not conclude its investigation until a few weeks after Reveal published a story earlier this year alleging widespread racial and gender discrimination in the company's hiring across the nation.

Automation denied it chose temps for jobs based on race or gender.

But some Automation recruiters said it was routine for the agency to get highly specific requests from companies for a certain race or gender, including clean-cut white men, black men without tattoos, slender women or unmarried women without kids.

"Whatever the customer wanted, we did," Candie McDermott, a former Automation employee who oversaw a team of recruiters in Alabama, told Reveal. "And you didn't ask questions; you just did it."

Automation officials declined through an attorney to comment on the EEOC case or "any pending litigation."

Temp industry officials say discrimination is extremely rare and only a small minority of agencies would take orders from clients for workers of a certain race or gender.

The New Jersey Staffing Alliance, an industry group, says it never had an issue with any of its more than 140 employment companies hiring based on race or gender.

"We have a very strict code of ethics for membership," said Elaine Balady, past president of the New Jersey Staffing Alliance and a 30-year veteran of the industry. "The vast majority of staffing firms are very good and very reputable."

In Lawrenceville, the former director of human resources for Lyneer Staffing Solutions claimed the national chain of nearly 50 temp agency branches "recruited, hired, and sorted candidates based upon race," according to a 2013 lawsuit.

At Lyneer, African-American candidates were referred to as "number 2s," the lawsuit alleged. When the human resources director, Jennifer Heckman, complained to company executives that the practice was unlawful, she was fired after six months on the job, her lawsuit alleged.

The lawsuit was settled out of court with neither side admitting any wrongdoing. Neither Heckman nor her attorney responded to requests for comment. Lyneer President Bryan Smith said he could not comment on the case or the two other lawsuits alleging the company considers race when hiring temps.

Smith said he has personally led training sessions with Lyneer branches to make sure they are not placing temps based on race or gender.

"That is absolutely not our policy," Smith said. "Every year we hold discrimination training."

Still, Smith said there are companies that place requests with Lyneer for temps of a certain race.

"I have in at least three instances refused to do business" with companies making discriminatory requests, Smith said. He declined to provide any additional details.

The lawsuits filed against temp agencies are likely only a hint of the discrimination in the industry, said George Gonos, who has studied the temp industry for decades and now works as a labor studies professor at Florida International University.

People working in temp jobs are among the most vulnerable in the workforce and among the least likely to file a complaint if they suspect discrimination, he said.

Racial discrimination in the industry harks back to an era when employers regularly ran job ads saying blacks, Jews or Irish need not apply, Gonos said.

"People of different ethnic backgrounds are being channeled to different industries," Gonos said. "This is like 19th-century stuff."

Will Evans of Reveal for The Center for Investigative Reporting contributed to this report. Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.