Employment

Building on interviews with more than 70 stakeholders, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED) has released a report exploring the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on employment opportunities for people with disabilities in the labor market. The report highlights the potentially transformative effects of AI in the labor market by outlining 142 AI-powered solutions tailored to assist people with disabilities. However, the report also examines the risks for people with disability posed by the increasing adoption of AI in the labor market and in society at large. The report outlines various governmental strategies aimed at mitigating the potential risks associated with the implementation of AI...

The Job Accommodation Network (JAN) provides guidance on how employers can address situations where identifying effective accommodations for employees with disabilities becomes challenging within the framework of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). JAN recommends a collaborative approach, involving the employee in discussions, reviewing previous accommodation attempts, and seeking external resources if needed. Employers are advised to explore trial accommodations, assess reassignment to available positions, and conduct individualized assessments to determine whether providing the accommodation would result in undue hardship.JAN also offers real-life examples of successful accommodations to illustrate potential solutions...

The Annual Disability Statistics Compendium provides summaries of statistics about people with disabilities and government programs that serve them. The Compendium presents key overall statistics on topics including the prevalence of disability, employment among persons with disabilities, rates of participation in disability income and social insurance programs, and more. The 2021 Annual Disability Statistics Compendium includes a new section on Voting and Registration, which explores voting and registration of people with and without disabilities in the 2020 presidential elections.

ACL is announcing two new grants to University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service (UCEDDs) including Community-Based Transitions Planning and Implementation Grants and a National Training Initiative to Support People with IDD Experiencing Co-Occurring Mental/Behavioral Health Issues.

The Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) on home and community-based services (HCBS) recently shared their Spring 2021 newsletter titled HCBS Quality Matters. The newsletter provides an inside look at the RRTC’s work and the HCBS studies on which they collaborate. The Spring 2021 edition highlights the needs of people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) and includes stories on health disparities, employment, and person-centered planning.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a data report on the employment rates of persons with disability. In 2020, 17.9 percent of persons with a disability were employed, down from 19.3 percent in 2019. For persons without a disability, 61.8 percent were employed in 2020, down from 66.3 percent in the prior year. The unemployment rates for persons with and without a disability both increased from 2019 to 2020, to 12.6 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. Read the report for more findings.

This new report from AARP explores the impact of age discrimination. The report measures the missed growth that the U.S. economy could have captured with better hiring practices and workplace retention initiatives. Findings show that the U.S. missed out on a potential $850 billion in GDP in 2018 and could lose out on $3.9 trillion in 2050 without intervention. The report also discusses how we can overcome age discrimination and capture the benefits of age inclusion in the future.

This report presents educational and employment data for youth and young adults with and without disabilities. It highlights the gap between youth with disabilities and those without disabilities on key measures of educational and employment success. This first report includes the status of the selected population, education, employment, and opportunity youth indicators. Future reports will also include a longitudinal trend analysis of these indicators.

AARP's Public Policy Institute (PPI) publishes a monthly update on employment numbers for people ages 55 and over. This report draws from monthly data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. AARP PPI has recently released its September 2019 version of the digest. Although the job rate growth slowed slightly, the unemployment rate declined to 3.5 percent overall, and 2.4 percent for people ages 55 and older.

This report examines older adults in the workforce. It uses data on retirement-age Americans’ incomes, health, and activities gathered from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Centers for Disease Control (CDC). An increasing number of older adults are participating in the labor force, many of them college-educated. This participation growth is driven largely by improved health.