We must do more to improve disability hiring, says U.S. official
February 22nd, 2010
From a press release from Enable America:
Hiring people with disabilities is not just the “right thing to do,” says the Labor Department’s top disability expert. It is “the necessary thing to do for the growth of our economy, and especially for the growth of our global economy.”
The remarks by Kathy Martinez, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, at a forum in Tampa, Florida, were part of a six-state “listening tour” aimed at increasing employment for people with disabilities. The sessions are billed as opportunities for members of the public to provide input to senior federal officials on more effective ways to employ all people with disabilities.
Martinez [who is blind] says it is crucial that the federal government take action on hiring people with disabilities if they are to ask others to do the same.
A recent study found that less than one percent of federal workers are classified as having disabilities.
It’s estimated that more than 70 percent of working-aged people with disabilities are not working, and 90 percent of them live in poverty. Related post here.
The Tampa session was sponsored by non-profit Enable America.
Related posts here.
(Kathy Martinez photo from ODEP.)
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