28 Access to Employment

As noted earlier in this scan, and as Canada’s Disability Action Plan recognizes, persons with disabilities are far more likely to be unemployed and to work in lower-skilled jobs; and the vast majority of accessibility-related human rights complaints are in the workplace context.^[1]  Adults with disabilities may require support to find and maintain employment, including job placement services, accommodations in the workplace, and assistance with navigating the job market.

There has been a growing recognition in recent decades of the importance of including people with disabilities in the workforce, manifest through policies and programs aimed at increasing employment opportunities, such as through affirmative action or accommodation.  However, there is still a large gulf between intention and action.  Through the late 1990s to about 2006, people with disabilities made notable gains in overall workforce participation. However, from the onset of the 2008/09 Great Recession and in the decade following, those earlier gains were eroded.^[2]  The past few years have been mixed in terms of access to the labour market, the onset of COVID-19 being a notable low point.  It is not clear if an uptick in stats measuring participation in the workforce simply flows from low overall unemployment (a very tight labour market), or if efforts to increase awareness and access are finally paying dividends.  Another issue is the intersection of ableism and rampant, systemic ageism in the workplace. Older employees – already stigmatized in the Canadian workplace (as reported in the Institute’s 2021 scan on aging) are more likely to be living with a disability, and to require a broader range of accommodations.

There are two slogans or phrases that tend to capture the employment vision for people with disabilities:1) “Real work for real pay”, which refers to freely chosen work on an equal basis with others in open and inclusive settings with reasonable accommodations when and where required; and 2) “Employment first”, which means that among the economic inclusion options available, employment is considered as the first and best option.^[3]

On that latter point, closing the poverty gap for people with disabilities is an expensive proposition if just looking at public expenditures via subsidy programs.  There is also a cost to the economy from underemployment of people with disabilities.  Harvard economist David Cutler estimates that the cost to the US economy of Long COVID alone is $3.7 trillion dollars.^[4]  A Lancet study looking at a sampling across North American and Europe found 22 per cent of employees were unable to work and another 45 per cent were working reduced hours.^[5]

In line with this employment first imperative, employment is a key pillar of the federal Action Plan.  The government announced a $270 million investment in the existing Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities, which – bolstered by an independent review noting a 170% social rate of return (or SROI) – provides supports such as training, placement and wage subsidies to just over 4,000 individuals.^[6]  As a Scotiabank report notes, “lifting the income of the 4.7 million Canadians working with disabilities to the median of their peers would translate into an additional $60 billion” in macroeconomic impact.^[7]

Calgary’s Disability Employment Awareness Week (DEAM) has made great strides not merely in normalizing employment of people living with a disability as a matter of equity – an ethical imperative in its own right – but also in raising awareness of the unique talents, contributions, and insights that those in the disability community bring to the workplace and to enterprise development.