In October of every year we celebrate National Disability Employment Awareness Month, but what exactly do we need to be “aware” of?
A large number of working age Canadians have some sort of disability – and the definition of “disability” in Canada is broad, including physical, non-physical, visible and non-visible disabilities of all kinds including diabetes, epilepsy, partial hearing loss, chronic pain, depression.
People with disabilities are far more likely to be unemployed than the rest of the population because of the barriers they face – and most of the time, those barriers are not physical.
Barriers can be attitudinal, systemic, policy-driven or a result of unintentional discrimination. It’s a lot easier to address the barriers we can see or hear or touch. These other barriers, which many of us are not even aware of, can at times seem impenetrable to a job-seeker who happens to have a disability. Especially if that person is also a recent graduate with little real-world work experience. That’s why we created Ability Edge.
Early next week our quarterly newsletter, CareerBulletin will be sent electronically to over 20,000 of our stakeholders – employers, HR professionals, alumni, interns and partner organizations. In recognition of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, disability and employment will be the theme of our upcoming issue. Features include:
- An interview with Loblaw, one of Canada’s largest and best employers and a host to Career Edge interns.
- A letter from the President & CEO of Career Edge Organization, Anne Lamont
- An interview with Allyson Hewitt from SiG@MaRS about their recent partnership, EnAbling Change
- Interviewing tips for BOTH employers and persons with disabilities
- The “MythBusters” quiz – provided by Business Takes Action to test your knowledge of disability issues in Canada
CareerBulletin is an e-newsletter with career and employment-related insights from Career Edge Organization, gained from almost 15 years of experience working with Canadian employers and over 10,000 recent graduates, graduates with disabilities and internationally qualified professionals (educated and experienced immigrants in Canada). Our readers include HR professionals, hiring managers and Canada’s leading diversity and employment experts.
If you want to receive the newsletter, all you have to do is subscribe or just leave a comment below and let us know – we’ll add you!