Working from home has long been an important way to provide employment for people with disabilities, especially those with mobility issues. However, a typical challenge for workers with disabilities is that companies are hesitant about how working from home works.
People with disabilities have been among the key gainers from the shift in corporate perspectives toward remote employment.
“The share of prime working-aged disabled individuals with a job is now the highest since at least the Great Recession, marking important progress; the evidence in this analysis suggests that a strong labor market is one important factor and the growth of remote work is another,” EIG chief economist, Adam Ozimek said in the study. “Both factors bode well for increasing employment opportunities for persons with disabilities in the long run.”
According to research conducted by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) utilizing data from the Current Population Survey, people with impairments aged 25 to 54 had a 3.5% higher employment rate in Q2 2022 than they did before the pandemic.
The revelation that non-disabled people had a 1.1% lower employment rate than before Covid-19 throws this number into stark contrast.
A study comparing 2017 and 2022 workplaces in terms of inclusion of people with disabilities from the perspective of supervisors, released last week by the Kessler Foundation, provides additional support for the Economic Innovation Group’s study.
The University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability conducted the “2022 National Employment & Disability Survey,” which found significant improvements in hiring, retaining and recruiting workers with disabilities.
Benefits for all
These studies must have taught us that it is important never to look at the experiences of minority groups in isolation.
It does not matter whether you are addressing the needs of smaller or larger diverse segments; there will always be important relationships, interactions, and lessons that the mainstream majority can still use.
As the Economic Innovation Group’s analysis showed, remote working was becoming more common even before 2019. As the Economic Innovation Group’s analysis showed, remote working was becoming more common before 2019. This movement wasn’t restricted to disability inclusion; rather, it relates to wider societal shifts in lifestyle.
Nevertheless, when the pandemic hit, a sizable body of evidence supporting the viability of remote work emerged from historical use cases of employees with impairments, which most likely gave companies more confidence that they could make it work for all employees.
A modern, open, flexible, and varied culture makes it unlikely that being unable to make it into the workplace every day will ever again be an employment barrier for many positions.