The Employment Gap for People With Disabilities

In its latest report entitled "Disability, Inclusion and Work", published in 2022, the OECD observes that "while employment rates for people with disabilities have improved over the past decade, the gap between people with and without disabilities when it comes to employment remains significant." In 2019 (most recent data available), in a set of 32 OECD countries, less than one in two people with disabilities had access to employment (44 percent), a figure that was more than 25 percentage points lower than that for people without functional limitations. As the following chart shows, Switzerland and Canada are among the best-performing countries when it comes to the professional inclusion of people with disabilities, with employment rates of between 54 percent and 58 percent for the latter, and a gap with people without disabilities that was less than 20 percentage points.

As the OECD explains, "the employment deficit persists because people with disabilities face a substantial and long-lasting skills gap: without the required skills and the opportunity to upgrade those skills in a constantly changing labor market, people with disabilities are not on a level playing field to fill a vacancy or keep a job. Low employment rates are also responsible for high poverty rates among people with disabilities".