The strong late-pandemic labor market is giving a lift to a group often left on the margins of the economy: workers with disabilities.
Employers, desperate for workers, are reconsidering job requirements, overhauling hiring processes and working with nonprofit groups to recruit candidates they might once have overlooked. At the same time, companies’ newfound openness to remote work has led to opportunities for people whose disabilities make in-person work — and the taxing daily commute it requires — difficult or impossible.
As a result, the share of disabled adults who are working has soared in the past two years, far surpassing its prepandemic level and outpacing gains among people without disabilities.
In interviews and surveys, people with disabilities report that they are getting not only more job offers, but better ones, with higher pay, more flexibility and more openness to providing accommodations that once would have required a fight, if they were offered at all.
Workers with disabilities — like other groups that face obstacles to employment — tend to benefit disproportionately from strong job markets. Remote work, however, has the potential to break that cycle, at least for some, @bencasselman writes.https://t.co/3RZicpji8r
— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) October 26, 2022