Employing People with Disabilities

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Life Skills, a United Way agency, works with over 130 employers in St. Louis, Missouri, preparing people with developmental disabilities for meaningful employment through individual skills assessment, job coaching and ongoing retention services.

Hiring people with disabilities offers wonderful benefits for the hiring company’s bottom line, says Life Skills. And with all the persuasive reasons to employ people with developmental disabilities, only 32% of Americans with disabilities, aged 18 to 64, are working. Furthermore, two-thirds of the 68% who are unemployed would rather be working, according to a survey by the Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The 2009 fiscal year saw Life Skills achieve a 91% success rate in helping individuals obtain jobs, receive coaching and move to retention. Furthermore, 57% are employed in non-traditional positions, such as office work, record keeping and manufacturing.

Posted by RecruitingTrends.com on October 21, 2009. Filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry