The European Disability Forum (EDF) has published a report, “Digital Skills, Accommodation and Technological Assistance for Employment”, which examines problems facing employees with disabilities across the EU and the UK. The report explores the causes of low employment of persons with disabilities, including inaccessible hiring processes and lack of accommodation, as well as a lack of access to assistive technologies and hostile workplace cultures. Other main findings include:
• Only 1 in 4 employers have developed accessible recruitment processes
• 81% of employers have no policy in place for the acquisition of assistive technology
• Only a quarter of employers are aware of and use public support to provide reasonable accommodation to workers with disabilities.
Some recommendations of the report include:
• Employers must invest in accessible technology, regardless of employees’ disability status
• Public authorities should increase and publicise state aid available to employers to cover reasonable accommodation – and simplify the application process
• Technology companies should involve persons with disabilities when designing technological solutions.
The report is available at: https://www.edf-feph.org/digital-skills-accomodation-employment/