Remote Work Boosts Employment for People With Disabilities, Survey Shows

The language of DEI may be currently out of favor, but a new report from the country’s largest human resources trade association, SHRM, suggests that the American workforce is far more diverse since the Covid pandemic effectively ended in 2021. The surprising change happened almost by default, but SHRM’s data show that there’s been a huge surge in the numbers of people with disabilities participating in the workplace — partly thanks to the shift toward hybrid and remote working. 

In fact, SHRM says the rates have hit a “historic high.” As of July this year “nearly 25 percent of people with disabilities participated in the labor force,” the organization notes, adding that the numbers represent a 30 percent surge since the beginning of the covid pandemic. The rising numbers are partly attributed to the shift to teleworking which has ”lowered traditional barriers to employment,” and SHRM also notes that research shows “workers with disabilities are more likely to work fully remote schedules compared to their counterparts without disabilities.”

An interesting factor in the growth is that it may skew toward younger people with disabilities: labor force participation of people in this group aged 16 to 24 has grown by nearly 60 percent since February 2020, SHRM says, higher than the average growth. This may mesh smoothly with the technological skills of digital-first age cohorts.

Of course the rising workforce participation of people with disabilities isn’t evenly spread, and the data show it’s lowest in jobs like “life, physical, social science and health care practitioners, and technical roles,” and high in work like building, maintenance and grounds cleaning. It’s possible this is linked, the report notes, to lower barriers to entry for these types of work. This may be a representation, SHRM says, of persistent societal challenges for people with disabilities, including “higher unemployment rates and lower educational attainment compared to those without disabilities.”

Nevertheless, the positive note here is that the surge in participation numbers are a “a vital opportunity for employers to address ongoing labor shortages,” SHRM’s report suggests, and it also says the data should be a call for HR teams and companies to persist in recruiting and advancing workers with disabilities. The research shows that having inclusive hiring habits, along with flexible or remote working models can help “foster a more diverse and competitive economic environment.”

The takeaways from this data for your company are very clear. SHRM’s report notes that workers with disabilities right now make up nearly 5 percent of the total employed workforce — that’s 1 in 20 people. If your company’s benefits and working models aren’t disability-friendly, then your recruitment process may be skipping potentially talented, valuable workers without addressing that pool of prospective job candidates.

But there’s much more value in hiring people with disabilities, starting with presenting an image of a company that has a good reputation — a recent report says that this characteristic may be more important when hiring the right candidates than ever. 

Meanwhile, a 2018 study of 140 American companies by consultancy giant Accenture found that companies that actively hire people with disabilities recorded 28 percent higher average revenues compared to companies without this policy, and their profit margins were 30 percent higher. Data also show that if an employee with disabilities is happy in their place of work they tend to remain with that employer for longer than people without disabilities. This can lead to cost savings over time, due to lower costs from reduced staff turnover.

To support your workers with disabilities, it’s also important to remember that there’s more work to do. Reports show that one-third of people in this cohort experience workplace discrimination of one sort or another, including a quarter who say discrimination began with interviewers, and 12 percent who said they’ve had difficulty even accessing the interview.

The other fact to remember is that there is much wider support for hybrid and remote working models than you may have thought. Offering this to your workers is known to be a good for business as well as a good incentive, and, as SHRM’s data show, it also has benefits for workers with disabilities.