October: National Disability Employment Awareness Month
- Katie Gillespie
- Oct 4, 2021
- 1 min read
National Disability Employment Awareness Month dates back to 1945 when Public Law 176 was enacted by Congress. This made the first week in October National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. A shift was made in 1962 to remove the word “physical” to reflect the employment needs of people with all types of disabilities. The full month focusing on Disability Employment Awareness was not fully created by Congress for another 25 years. This month celebrates the achievements made by people with disabilities in workplaces and the economy.
This October is focusing on the need for employment opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities during the U.S. recovery from Covid-19. Since the Covid-19 outbreak in March, around 1 million US workers with disabilities have lost their job, according to the New Hampshire University Institute on Disability. 1 in 5 people with IDDs lost their jobs as opposed to 1 in 7 in the general population. One attribution to this difference is because many workplaces laid off their more recently hired employees, which was more often people with disabilities. There was also a drop because many people with disabilities had underlying conditions that put them at higher risk so they could not continue to work.
Employers can help by creating more accessible workplaces environments, for example reliable captioning in virtual meetings.
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