Daily Egyptian
Fall '03 Edition
Disabled unemployment rate hits 70 percent
Moustafa Ayad
Daily Egyptian
While the State of Illinois might be setting benchmark records in its effort to find jobs for people with disabilities, there seems to be a dark cloud looming over the impressive record-setting figure.
Despite a 30-percent increase in jobs for those with disabilities, a 2-year high for the agency responsible for the jump, a 70-percent unemployment rate hangs over the record-setting percentage.
The Office of Rehabilitation Services achieved the task of finding 8,200 jobs for an array of people. But they did not reach a departmental goal of 10,000 people, according to a press release earlier this year.
Jim Scales, the director of Career Services at SIUC, said it prepares a student in terms of pre-appointment skills. Skills such as writing a resume, dressing for success and dining etiquette become some of the paramount lessons career services aims to instill in students.
"Then that individual makes or breaks themselves in terms of interviewing for positions out there in the world of work," Scales said. "Now at the same time, other agencies are training the workforce in adaptive technology."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation, in the prime employable years of 21 to 64, 77 percent of those held a job or owed a business with a non-severe disability, compared with 82 percent of people without a disability. Only 26 percent of those with a severe disability work.
Adaptive technology allows a prospective hire of a person who has a disability, whether it be carpal tunnel syndrome or blindness, to adapt to the environment he or she works in.
One example of adaptive technology is voice-modulated technology for computers that allows persons with disabilities, little vision or no vision to use a computer with efficiency and agility.
"Putting all that together now, we get to the position where, are there job positions available for disabled students?" Scales said. "The end result is 30 percent of them are getting hired, 70 percent are not. Now we have to go back and break down the statistic on the 70 percent to find out what happened."
Scales said the 70-percent number, which is comparable to the overall unemployment rate in the United Sates and has held a steady 4 to 6.5 percent for the past few months, can be comprised of various reasoning, such as a chemist trying to get a job in a biology-related field or a lack of educational achievement, like completing a master's degree.
There is also the possibility an employer has a position that cannot be adapted by the use of technology for a person with disabilities.
"Some employers have the jobs, but they don't have the money for adaptive technology. The non-disabled persons have more individuals assisting them find employment than there is helping people who are disabled," Scales said. "There are reasons why the 70 percent happens, but in some cases there aren't enough jobs."
"There is not some active discrimination going on. But a non-disabled person can walk into a company and write a resume and handle him or herself. A disabled person cannot."
Scales said his staff has no specific persons that are able to assist disabled students with the necessary tools through their teaching.
"Depending on what the disability is, we don't know how to react to that," he said. "That happens at job service center outside of the University. For example, we have a rehabilitation center here in Carbondale, and they do not graduate enough people to meet the demand."
Rob Kilbury, associate director of the Office of Rehabilitation Services, said there are a variety of reasons for the unemployment gap, some of which are discrimination issues and mobility issues, as well as not being able to live on their own.
"There is discrimination that sometime happens on the employment side of things," Kilbury said. "And then there is a public policy where we award people with social security benefits and award people with health insurance, and they're put between a rock and a hard place as it relates to keeping their benefits or taking the big leap of getting off benefits and going back to work."
The office assists by finding jobs for people with disabilities or helping them come back to school. Kilbury said the agency tries to see the people for the abilities they bring to the table instead of their disabilities being a hindrance.
Early retirement has left the office with a number of vacancies. Finding the necessary people with master's degrees has become harder in recent years.
"The one common thing we try to do is match them all with a job that is commiserate with what they can do rather than focus a lot of attention on what they can't do."
Moustafa Ayad can be reached at mayad@dialyegyptian.com
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