One in six people who becomes disabled while in work loses their job within a year, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
In the report Enduring economic exclusion: disabled people, income and work, based on nationally representative surveys, researcher Tania Burchardt suggests that keeping people who become disabled while in work could make a substantial difference to overall rates of employment among disabled people. She said in the report, “Additional support should be offered to individuals when they become disabled in order to retain their employment.”
The study found that getting work is more difficult for disabled job-seekers and one-third of disabled people who do find work are out of a job again by the following year.
The employment rates among disabled people are around half of the level of non-disabled employment.
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It also found that half of all disabled people have incomes below half the general population – often taken as an indicator of poverty – when adjustments are made to take into account additional expenditure incurred as a result of people’s disabilities.
