Reskilling toolkit accelerating the gears of transformation

This report examines the labour market experiences of people with disabilities, using data from the 2012 Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD). Compared with people without disabilities, those with disabilities have lower employment rates, lower levels of compensation, and weaker levels of job tenure (Government of Canada, 2010). Although a comparison of employment characteristics of people with and without disabilities based on the 2012 CSD has been published (Turcotte, 2014), the CSD data offer opportunities for further analysis of disability-specific aspects of employment. Specifically, the CSD provides information about employment barriers encountered by people with disabilities, the types of workplace accommodations needed, and whether those needs are being met, perceptions of disability-based discrimination in the work environment, and labour force discouragement among those who are not in the labour force. This report aims to provide insight to employers, and to spark further research in the area of disability and employment., Most statistics in this analysis are based on respondent self-identification and provide invaluable information from people with disabilities themselves. However, these findings represent only a piece of the complete picture. They should be interpreted together with other sources such as employers’ perspectives and data from program/administrative sources. This report is divided into four sections. In section two, findings related to the high percentage of people with disabilities out of the labour force are provided, and the relationship with unemployment is discussed. Section three provides a framework for identifying working-age people with disabilities who are not working, but have the potential to work, and profiles this population. Section four discusses barriers that people with disabilities have experienced, with a focus on workplace accommodations, training, employment experience, labour force discouragement, and disability-based discrimination. Section five presents concluding remarks., Several key results emerge from the analysis: (1) many working-age people with disabilities have, at least intermittently, dropped out of the labour force; (2) in addition to people with disabilities who are currently working, an estimated 411,600 are not employed but have the potential to work – almost half of these potential workers are postsecondary graduates; (3) modified work hours are key – among employed people with disabilities; modified work hours are the most commonly stated workplace accommodation – an accommodation that has generally been met by employers; among potential workers with disabilities, modified work hours would be needed to an even greater degree; and modified or reduced hours were also the most common reason cited by employed people with disabilities for difficulty advancing in or changing jobs; and (4) people with disabilities who were not in the labour force reported inadequate training or experience to be one of the main barriers in searching for a job; many potential workers with disabilities wanted to take work-related training to increase their employability., Excerpts from publication.