Half of Australian businesses have never hired persons with disabilities
- Claire Lee
- Topics: Australia, DE&I, Home Page - News, News, Recruitment
Half of Australian businesses have never hired a person with disabilities, and nearly one in 10 said that they would not want to in the future, according to a YouGov survey.
The survey, which took into account the opinions of 501 Australian middle managers and HR professionals, also found that they were dissatisfied with the Disability Employment Services (DES) programme, which pays private providers to place jobseekers into work, reports The Guardian.
Meanwhile, among those who said that their firm had hired a person with disability, 40% of respondents said they had done so through internal recruitment, 26% used an external recruitment agency, while 21% were connected through a DES provider.
The survey also found that 91% of the managers who had used the DES programme faced challenges with it.
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Last year, only 53.4% (1 million) of working-aged people with disability participated in the labour force, according to the Disability Royal Commission.
The commission also found that among the 10 major firms which collectively employ over 341,000 workers and had reported figures to the inquiry, there was only an average of 1% of workers who had a disability.
