In the US, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act went into effect on March 24, 2014 with a 7 percent aspirational goal for self-identification of people with disabilities. About 50 percent of the U.S. population is directly or indirectly impacted by disability, and 71 percent of disabilities are not visible.
According to Fifth Quadrant Analytics globally, the disability market represents 1.3 billion people who face challenges across three general areas—dexterity, cognition or sensory issues. Governments of developed countries around the world are placing greater focus on disability issues than ever before.
However, despite the fast growing size and scope of this “majority minority”—thanks to the aging baby boomers—we have seen very little progress in reducing the high unemployment rate of people with disabilities. According to the United Nations, in developing countries, 80 to 90 percent of persons with disabilities of working age are unemployed, whereas in industrialized countries the figure is between 50 and 70 percent.
In the US, a recent survey conducted by the Kessler Foundation showed that 68 percent of people with disabilities are “striving for work”, meaning that they are actively seeking employment or involved in some type of training that would prepare them for employment. One of the key barriers reported by 36 percent is the assumption on the part of prospective employers that they cannot do the job.
Another study conducted by Wharton, surfaced three key obstacles to hiring individuals with disabilities including:
- Fear that people with disabilities will create more work for supervisors.
- The perception that there are very few resources to help recruiters source people with disabilities and people with disabilities may not want to self-identify for fear of jeopardizing their chances of being selected.
- There are limited internal budgets to hire individuals with the expertise to recruit individuals with disabilities.
Given the findings from the two studies cited above, I would ask that we consider the following questions:
- Are we really ready for self-identification? With lingering stereotypes and biases, is it too risky for individuals with non-visible disabilities to reveal this information during an interview?
- Are recruiters and hiring managers going to really look for innovative ways to accommodate differing abilities?
- How much effort are companies putting forth to actively seek employees with disabilities?
- Does your company have relationships with organizations such as Project Search, an international program that arranges internships for high school students with developmental disabilities in the hopes of permanent placements?
- Are we really serious about alleviating the high unemployment rates for individuals with disabilities or is it just a lot of lip service?
