Issue:
The labour market is seeing a growing shortage of labour in certain industries and geographic areas, and an aging workforce that is retiring at an older age than in the past. But at the same time, there is an untapped labour pool of some 795,000 Canadians with disabilities—almost half of whom have a post-secondary education—who are unemployed despite being able and willing to work. People with visible disabilities hold great promise for the Canadian labour market, and employers who succeed in recruiting, hiring and accommodating people with disabilities generally do so with minimal disruption or expense. Replicated on a wider scale, these accommodations have the potential to transform Canadian workplaces, and create opportunities for skilled Canadians who are currently not engaged in paid work because of a visible disability. In partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), researchers at the Institute are undertaking a literature review to identify the kinds of accommodations being made for different types of visible disabilities by employers in different workplace contexts, as well as accommodations in recruitment, hiring and retention practices that have been effective in attracting and retaining people with disabilities. As well, the literature review seeks to identify the gaps and barriers that prevent employers from actively recruiting and retaining people with disabilities.
Objectives:
•To determine types of accommodation practices that have been shown to be effective for different types of visible disabilities and in which contexts (e.g. occupation, industry and size of employer).
•To identify promising recruiting, hiring, and retention practices adopted by employers in Canada and in other countries for accommodating persons with different types of visible disabilities.
•To identify the gaps, barriers and needs of employers in relation to accommodating persons with different types of visible disabilities in the workplace.
•To examine which types of accommodation practices and resources might better support labour-force attachment in Canada for persons with different types of visible disabilities.
Anticipated Results:
This study is directly related to the development of best practice guidelines by the Canadian Standards Association, and may be a platform for the larger evidence synthesis they will be completing in the process of developing work disability prevention best practice guidelines.
Investigators:
Emile Tompa, Alexis Buettgen, Quenby Mahood, Andrew Posen, Amin Yazdani
