From the Las Vegas Sun:

The economic slowdown is threatening jobs for more than 350 adults with intellectual disabilities in Las Vegas, as companies that have supported a local employment program are pulling contracts in an effort to cut costs.

Organizers at Opportunity Village say the cost-cutting efforts are misplaced, and that workers with disabilities can do work with more reliability and less expense.

“(The companies) think they’re saving themselves money to do it that way, but they’re really not,” said one manager. “What they were paying us pennies to do, they’re now paying an hourly employee to do, and they don’t do it nearly as fast as we do.”

Opportunity Village is a not-for-profit organization that serves people with intellectual disabilities by providing them with vocational training, employment and social recreation.

(Photo of Kevin Schmidt arranging condiment packages for Harrah’s Corporation, Las Vegas Sun)

See also: Tony Orlando performance benefits Opportunity Village

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 1:55 pm and is filed under budget, employment/jobs, intellectual/developmental disabilities, philanthropy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.