People with disability in Australia are more likely to be unemployed, or underemployed than those without disability. Since 1992, participation rates for people with disability in the workforce have fallen whilst the participation rate for persons without disability have risen.554
People with disability also face difficulties in retaining employment due to the lack of flexibility offered by some employers555 in relation to work times, job conditions and myths and stereotypes associated with their employment.
Furthermore, the employment rate for people with disability in the Australian public sector is also disproportionately low compared to persons without disability.556 More recently, the Australian Public Service Commission found that employees with disability were 60 percent more likely than other staff to be retrenched.557
In addition, Australian governments do not require companies and organisations it contracts for the supply of goods and services to have or implement action plans for the employment of people with disability. There is also a lack of research into the reasons for the low engagement rate of people with disability in pre-employment training and ‘on the job’ training programs.558
The employment rate for persons with intellectual disability is substantially less than both people with other disability and persons without disability. This decline flows from the failure of government to provide ongoing and appropriate levels of employment support.
There is a lack of programs that provide ongoing support which aim to increase the self-esteem and confidence of some persons with psychosocial disability.559 Public mental health services are not funded to offer vocational services and often lack up to date knowledge of developments regarding employment for persons with a psychosocial disability.560
People with disability from non-English speaking backgrounds face intersectional discrimination561 based on their disability and ethnicity, which impacts on the low rates of workplace engagement.
People from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background with disability continue to face intersectional discrimination, often due to the failure of employment services to acknowledge the cultural and linguistic diversity of service users. Current Transition to Work or Community participation programs have not been redesigned to ensure they meet the needs of people from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background in culturally appropriate ways.562
Although transition to Work and Community Participation programs563 assist younger people with disability to develop the skills required to secure paid employment, there is a lack of collaborative pathways to employment across schools and open employment agencies.564
A Complaint Resolution and Referral Service funded by the Commonwealth to deal with consumer complaints against Commonwealth funded services has a restricted scope of services that it can respond to. It is a mechanism within a service quality strategy, and has no explicit legislative basis for its operation and no explicit functions or powers to provide complainants with substantive or injunctive relief if a service provider fails to act upon its recommendations.
