Promoting Opportunity for People with Intellectual Disability
One out of every six people in the world — or some 1 billion people — has a disability. Between 785 and 975 million of them are estimated to be of working age, but according to expert analysis most do not work. People with intellectual disability are reported to make up one per cent of the population globally. In EU member states, however, the unemployment rate of people with intellectual disabilities was found to approach almost 100 per cent. The vast majority of those few who do work are found in sheltered workshops and those with high support needs are generally directed to day activity centres. Social firms are a type of enterprise initially developed in the European context for people with psychosocial disabilities following the closure of large ‘mental asylums’. The specific purpose of social firms is to create jobs for people who find it hardest to get them.
A current report shows that globally little has been done to include people with intellectual disabilities into the workforce. For example, in the Netherlands, employers’ attitudes towards hiring people with disabilities in general have not changed. It is pointed out that barriers that prevent people with disabilities entering the labour market, such as bureaucracy and effective support for people with intellectual disabilities, have not been dealt with. The tradition in the Netherlands has been to support large congregate-care residential centres for people with intellectual disabilities but not move beyond that to seek for active integration.
