The Struggle to find Work when you have a Disability

29 Oct 2013: Only 50% of workers with disabilities are in the workforce. The following video brings up some interesting point. You can check it out here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-22/work-challenges-for-people-with-disabilities/4535306

The case study shows Mark Johns who was born with no arms, but is very competent in a roll in a call centre is struggling to find work now due to being judged by his disability as well not having a disabled toilet in his building. Even though his employer allowed him the extra time to go to the building next door, the stress would have most probably wore him down and consequently his job would have ended.

It is not good that Australia is number 21 out of 27 in placing people with a disability into work. The fact that New Zealand is so ahead of us in placing people with disabilities should spur us to do better. To get close to what New Zealand is doing would add $43 billion to our GDP.

The problem with employers is that even though they are open to employing people with a disability, they lack confidence and have poor attitudes and unfairly judge those people with a disability. What can we do to overcome this?