Employers still wary of disabilities

Smaller employers are still cautious when it comes to taking on people with physical and learning disabilities, a consultancy says, and the situation does not seem to be improving much.

People with mental health problems especially will find it difficult to locate a willing employer, according to Minty & Friend.

Phil Friend, co-founder and director of the firm, said: "The figures are persistently difficult. We don't see big shifts in the employment rates for disabled people, they stay pretty constant over time.

"That doesn't mean there's not been some improvement - there has. But when you think about the million or so disabled people on incapacity benefits, that figure has remained reasonably constant."

"The big organisations, because they've got the resources, HR and those kinds of things, are much more switched on to the issue. Where there's the real challenge is the small and medium enterprises, because they don't have the same resources, they don't have the time to spend," he added.

"The people doing the recruiting want an easy time, they don't want problems. They just want somebody to turn up and get on with the job. And disabled people sometimes - not always - require some adjustments to be made, and that is seen to be a problem," Mr Friend continued.

"The most difficult groups among employment rates are people with mental health conditions - which is considered to be pretty scary and unreliable - people who are deaf, [and] people who are blind," he concluded.

According to charity Leonard Cheshire Disability, around half of the seven million people of working age in the UK with a long-term disability are unemployed.


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