Global Fact Sheet
Employment of persons with disabilities
Data on persons with disabilities are hard to come by in almost every country. Specific data on their employment situation are even harder to find. Yet persons with disabilities face the same predicament everywhere. These data, culled from the media and from reports, provide an anecdotal picture of the current situation.
Global
In developing countries, 80% to 90% of persons with disabilities of working age are unemployed, whereas in industrialized countries the figure is between 50% and 70%.
Asia and the Pacific
There are 370 million persons with disabilities, 238 million of them of working age. Their unemployment rate is usually double that of the general population and often as high as 80%
There are approximately 40 million persons with disabilities, and of these 43% to 54% were of working age in 1998. Persons with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be unemployed than others.
Latin America and the Caribbean
About 80-90% of persons with disabilities are unemployed or outside the work force. Most of those who have jobs receive little or no monetary remuneration.
World Bank, ‘Disability and inclusive development: Latin America and the Caribbean’, 2004
Argentina
The unemployment rate of persons with disabilities is estimated to be close to 91%.
Austria
In 2005, about 91,000 persons with disabilities were registered, of whom about two thirds were employed and some 31,000 economically inactive or mostly unemployed.
Brazil
Of the approximately 24.5 million persons with disabilities in 2000, some 78.7% said they had a maximum of seven years of schooling. One out of 10 worked with an official labour contract and nearly two out of every ten were self-employed, according to census data. Since 2001, more than 55,000 persons with physical disabilities have entered the labour market.
30% of persons with disabilities receive less than the minimum wage.
Bulgaria
A research on persons with disabilities conducted in 2005 by the National Statistical Institute showed that only 13% of the interviewees at working age 16 to 64 years were employed.
Canada
The unemployment rate for persons with disabilities is 26%, over five times higher than the 5% rate for persons without disabilities.
Chile
Only 25.1% of persons with disabilities have some form of employment, in comparison to 51.6% of the general population
China
The estimated number of persons with disabilities is 83 million, accounting for about 6.3% of the country’s population.
Costa Rica
According to estimates by disability organizations, the unemployment rate is around 65%. Estonia
The 2002 National Statistical Report showed that only 25% of persons with disabilities between the ages of 16 and 65 were employed.
Greece
According to the Survey on People with Health Problems or Disability (second semester of 2002) by the National Statistical Service, the unemployment rate for persons with disabilities is 84%.
Honduras
According to the 2002 National Institute of Statistics household survey, 68% of persons with disabilities of working age are not in the active labour force, compared to 49% of the total population.
India
According to the 2001 census, 21.9 million people or 2.13% of the country’s population are persons with disabilities.
74% of persons with physical disabilities and 94% of persons with Developmental Disabilities are unemployed.
Ireland
The Quarterly Household National Survey 2004 revealed that just over 37% of all persons of ages 15-64 with a disability health problem were employed, compared to 63.8% for the total population in the same age category.
International Disability Rights Monitor, ‘Regional Report of Europe’, 2007
Mexico
The country reports that 14% of persons with disabilities who are working receive no pay, and another 22.6% receive less than the minimum wage.
International Disability Rights Monitor, ‘Regional Report of the Americas’, 2004
New Zealand
One in five New Zealanders has a disability.
According to a 2001 survey, 29% of persons with disabilities of working age are in full-time paid employment. This is in contrast to the 65% of others of the same age who are employedPhilippines
According to the 2000 National Population Census of the National Statistics Office, the population of persons with disabilities was 942,098, or 1.23% of the total population of 76,504,077.
Of the total population of persons with disabilities, 57.12% are employed, compared to 82.3% of the general population.
Republic of Korea
The unemployment rate of persons with disabilities is about 30%, five or six times higher than that of the general work force.
Russian Federation
According to data from the Federal Service of Labour and Employment, 70% of the disability population is unemployed.
International Disability Rights Monitor, ‘Regional Report of Europe’, 2007
Spain
At least 66% of persons with disabilities of working age were unemployed in 2003.
Thailand
There are about 4.8 million persons with disabilities, about 1.3 million of whom are of working age.
Turkey
According to the Turkish Employment Organization, persons with disabilities constituted 7% of the unemployed population in 2006.
United Kingdom
Of the 10 million persons with disabilities, 6.8 million are of working age, one fifth of the total working age population.