A new report by the U.S. Department of Labor finds that as of last spring, only 19.1 percent of American companies said they employ people with disabilities. Even fewer — 13.6 percent — reported actively recruiting people with disabilities.

The figures were compiled by the department’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), based on interviews with 3,797 companies representing more than 2.4 million firms nationwide. The interviews were conducted in the first half of 2008, before the onset of the current recession.

Some of the report’s key findings:

– Among small companies (employing 5 to 14 people), only 10.7 percent reported employing people with disabilities.

– Some 53.1 percent of large companies (employing 250 or more employees) reported employing people with disabilities.

– Only 8.7 percent of companies reported hiring someone with a disability in the 12 months prior to the interview.

– Larger companies are more likely to actively recruit people with disabilities (33.8 percent) than small companies (7.8 percent), and public administration organizations are more likely to actively recruit than private sector businesses.

– When asked what type of information might convince them to recruit people with disabilities, companies that do not actively recruit cited information about performance, productivity, and benefit to the company’s profitability.

ODEP also provides a website articulating a “business case” for employing workers with disabilities, based on feedback from employers.

See related post: Americans with disabilities hit hard in downturn

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 7:34 pm and is filed under business, employment/jobs, NOT2BEMISSED. 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.