Disabled job seekers losing jobs to nondisabled workers
March 19th, 2009Only 21 percent of available workers with disabilities are employed
From CNN:
As rising unemployment floods the job market with skilled workers, agencies that seek jobs for workers with disabilities say their clients are losing out to nondisabled workers.
A February report from the Department of Labor found a 14 percent unemployment rate among disabled workers, about double that of the nondisabled population. But the real problem goes far deeper, experts say: only 21 percent of the available working disabled population is employed, compared with 65 percent of workers without disabilities.
“We are having people come through the programs that we are not being able to place,” said Wayne McMillan, CEO of Bobby Dodd Institute in Atlanta. The organization provides job training and rehabilitation for people with disabilities. “Last year we placed 171 folks; during the month of December zero; January two. This is a real crisis for us.”
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March 26th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Quoting the article: “Welsh was laid off from his job as an executive assistant in 2006.
“I did mortgages, refinances and purchase deals. I was dismissed from that job and after that I was sent over to the Bobby Dodd Institute to do my vocational rehab counseling,” he said.
The Bobby Dodd Institute in Atlanta provides job training and rehabilitation for people with disabilities.
Meg Godfrey, an employment specialist with BDI, has been handling Welsh’s case.
“He came to us originally looking for a position in administrative clerical type work. We have lowered his goals to greeting and ticket-taking, but those are the first jobs that go in this type of economy,” she said.
W.T.F.?
People have to wonder why the disabled community is underemployed???
I’ve been in a number of “jobs programs” in my years and have been steered to menial work a few times, though I have a CS degree. Work is never work to some, but instead it’s a “program” or a “line item”.
I keep up my IT skills deliberately and unapologetically despite having disabilities. I get criticized for it once in a great while, when people tell me “if I’m so smart, how can I have a disability” (or if I have a disability, why I’m so smart. Etc.)
People like Sam Welsh give me the reason why: It doesn’t matter what native talent someone with a disability has. It only matters that they can do menial work that’s barely better than passing time in front of TV.
And never mind the quality of the job: The Bobby Dodd Institute is placing people at the base of the pyramid, where there are many, many competitors, most of which are not disabled.
Welsh literally can’t compete at that low level.
Small wonder he went outside the system to bake cakes! it’s as good a job as he is likely to get anywhere through that institute, a specialized (and tasty) skill, and the sort of thing we praise when Martha Stewart does it.
He’d do a lot better in that business than in any “jobs program”.