It annoys me the way we’ve starting calling autistic people “neurodivergent” now. Yes, I know it covers other conditions too (I for example have ADHD which falls under that umbrella I think, certainly has some crossovers) but it smacks of people wanting to avoid using the term “autistic” in a well meaning way, but basically suggesting there’s something offensive or wrong about the label autistic.
Anyway, that aside, I don’t see why it’s surprising in the slightest that people who have a condition that means they struggle with social interaction, communication, and personal development, are not in employment.
EDIT – forgot to put my main point in, a question in fact – What should/could employers do? Would be interesting to know. I must admit I’m slightly ignorant on that aspect.
As an autistic man I have noticed efforts to meet the “reasonable accommodation” clause in inclusivity legislation are generally quite pathetic, generally token at best and more for someone in management to be able to slap themselves on the back for being so empathetic and caring rather than actually meeting the needs of disabled workers.
I’m quite sensitive to light and noise. I sit in a big open office with bright white fluorescent lighting. Asked for noise cancelling headphones, nope sorry buy them yourself if you want them. Asked if we could maybe install a switch so I could turn off the light right above my desk when its getting too much, nope too disruptive for other workers. Asked for maybe a quiet room where I could go for 10 or 15 minutes if I need to unwind, nope no spare space anywhere, not even a cupboard or a closet. Actual provisions offered in the end to meet my needs as a person with a recognized disability? Nothing, deal with it or find a job elsewhere.
I could go on at length but I am in my 30s now and can count the number of positive experiences I have had even with medical experts on one hand. You aren’t in a wheelchair so the suspicion is always there that you’re idk just trying to get attention or be different or something. Someone actually taking you at face value and listening to you in good faith with the pure intention to actually help you is incredibly incredibly rare, most of the time they just seem to want to find some little statement they can use to dismiss you with something along the lines of “well everyone feels like that sometimes” etc. etc.
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I realised how much of my career struggles I can attribute to my autism only in the last year. Being forced into an office cubicle surrounded by people who by my perception are interacting with me weirdly adds such a massive weight to what should be easy work related tasks. I’m constantly managing burnout and fighting boredom in the office to a point of overworking because I find a particular task interesting or feeling sick because the task I hate won’t go away soon enough. Talking to people and having them laugh at me because of what I say or how I say it or what I’m enthusiastic about saps my joy and I find it takes less and less time to find myself beaten into the ground and considering exiting under a train. It’s incredibly hard to manage and knowing that I have this going on means very little for even the most ‘inclusive’ employers really. Free advice? sure, any actual changes? eh…
And really most of the problem comes from the intensity and abundance of the social issues. You can’t just turn those off. Only through getting older and getting a diagnosis have I learned to work through all this but it still feels like I’m on a time limit. Finally I have found a balance of work from home and in office work so fingers crossed this is the one. That said, I’m still scared.
The fun part, when I’m not employed or wrist deep in a project I feel like my life has no purpose, like I’m nothing and will just expire in my room. It really sucks as an experience. At the least knowing that even when I do the best I can that I will struggle, certainly takes some of the weight off.
One thing that is good, if you have a disability getting guaranteed interview is a lifesaver. Anyway I have a lot of faith in my new job, they said all the right things. if it is just as described i’ll be happy there for a long time
I question this statistic.
That rate of diagnosis in the UK is abysmal.
The people most likely to get it are people who can’t work.
ND’s who can work are far less likely to seek diagnosis or get it, therefore not being counted.
Most corporations only care about the kinds of neurodiversity that benefits their bottom line, i.e. nervous geniuses who can be easily manipulated into over working for under payment. The moment neurodiversity makes someone slightly difficult to handle, they’ll try not to have to deal with the person as quickly as they can.
The headline is so misleading. It says most ND people aren’t in work, but the statistics in the article are just for autism.
The 15% ND number isn’t just people with autism, it includes dyslexia and ADHD etc.
Of course. Every single time I’ve applied for a job and declared that I’m autistic on the form, even if they have that “Guaranteed interview scheme”, I’ve never once been interviewed, so I stopped mentioning it and got an interview every single time.
Those schemes actually make it worse, because it allows employers to pick out neurodivergent people and scrutinise their applications harder than they would anyone else so they can find some other grounds to reject them.
Very believable. We can’t even get our autistic daughter a school placement despite it being a legal requirement.
Once you hit 16, I would imagine finding employment just about impossible.
This ‘neurodiversity’ terminology is interesting
Because looking at what we normally talk about with ‘diversity’ – namely race – there’s obviously no actual difference in capability between any groups so obviously there shouldn’t be under representation because that implies bias
With ‘neurodiversity’ – and that’s a little too dancing around the issue for me as a term – these conditions do genuinely make those who have them worse at interacting with society – so presenting it as simply ‘diversity’ when it has clear negative effects and actual material differences is strange in my opinion
Not surprising. I’ve struggled in every job I’ve been in, from cleaning, to call centre, to healthcare worker. Why? Because employers are inflexible in their processes and treat reasonable adjustments like the plague.
Yes, legally they have to make reasonable adjustments, but the onus is on the *employee* to make sure they do. It’s too easy for employers to fall back on ‘it’s unsustainable for the business’ as an excuse to refuse. I’m literally going through tribunal currently for this exact reason and it’s not easy at all, much less so for an autistic person like me. There’s a very strong possibility I’ll lose my tribunal not because my claim isn’t valid, but because I don’t have the legal expertise or representation to challenge them. I know what they did to me, but putting that in legal terms? Proving it when it was all behind closed doors? Nigh on impossible. Combine that with collusion and lying and it’s a major battle. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken an employer to tribunal for discrimination and it’ll absolutely be the last. It’s easier to just leave a role than hold employers accountable for illegal discrimination.
If you don’t have the ability to fight for your rights, or don’t know what they are, then those ‘legal obligations’ employers have to support you don’t actually help at all.
You have to advocate for yourself, sometimes repeatedly and aggressively and I can’t tell you how exceptionally difficult that can be if you’re ND.
Those figures are astounding; I can grasp the 15-20% being neurodivergent which seems to broadly match my experiences (maybe even being under reported as it’s a very broad term) but 85% of people on the autistic spectrum being unemployed seems… well, wouldn’t that be 17% of the working population, if you take 20% neurodivergency? Or are they comparing apples and oranges and taking 20% neurodiverse but then using a specific subset of ASD? My brain is hurting
ETA – just to clarify, I am aware that neurodivergency doesn’t just include ASD so I suspect they are pulling a sneaky here…
Edit 2 – I left out a “they” in between “or are… comparing”. Kinda crucial to the context.
My experience with dyslexia in the workplace has been quite poor, and I don’t have it too bad (I’m classed as mid dyslexic). Even with Occupational Health depts anything is only ever a “recommendation” and the company is under no actual obligation to oblige these.
My experience has ranged from very accommodating all the way through to “this obviously means you can’t do your job correctly and don’t deserve a career” (I had a disciplinary for making a typo in an email title which made a different but correct word).
Until companies are forced to provide “recommended” accommodations I don’t see things improving. I’ve had to job hop just to find places which “accept me as I am” and treat me like another person. It’s really hard going into a new job and having to disclose to people you’ve just met “hey I will need additional help with things” when you’ve had bad experiences and don’t know if this will end up being another. I simply couldn’t cope with stress a couple of times in the past over this and I know several who have given up trying because the “good” companies are so few and far between.
Generally sensory issues are completely ignored when talking about autism (or ADHD for that matter). It’s getting better, but HR and companies don’t seem to realize that a lot of those “adjustments” are sensory which is such a primary source of distress…
I’ve got three Autistic children, I’m terrified of them going into work. My eldest is 16, and he wants to go into the world of architecture, or help people in developing nations build housing, using local resources. He’s got big ambitions, and it feels horrible knowing the reality is that he’s unlikely to fulfill that potential. Between the realities of trying to work as an Autistic person, and the way the current government are, I’m at the point of no hope
Well that’s a backhanded compliment to myself for bagging a decent office job.
It’s ok however, because if you cannot work, the govt have said they’ll ignore all medical evidence and sanction you for not working.
They truly have no soul, still pushing the bs that mental health is something made up by lazy people who don’t want to get a job.
I can’t imagine the damage the latest decision to inflict toucher sanctions on unwell a disabled people will cause.
This report is ignoring the amount of neurodiverse people in the workplace who refuse to get diagnosis out of fear of repercussions or backlash. I have ADHD and other mental/physical conditions myself and have never been unemployed despite suffering with my conditions.
In fact, despite having said conditions and never really truly getting any accommodations as a result of working in the NHS for the most part, I have managed to climb the corporate ladder thanks to therapy and medication. A few weeks I went from my Band 5 job into a Band 7.
Having a disability of any kind is incredibly expensive and realistically speaking, no one should be living on Universal Credit and be expected to manage things appropriately, as it is not enough for neither people with or people without disabilities.
I dunno if I’m neurodiverse but find people draining as fuck. Weirdly I’m more an extrovert than introvert, I LOVE meeting new people I often go to bars alone, and probably will tonight in soho unless my wife changes her mind and joins me, I’m not an intro. But I HATE small talk when I’m focused on a task. I can’t stand the mindless chatter so many others rely on for “connection” and validation. In this way, i empathise hugely with neurodiverse types who find interaction draining. It leave me with no energy left to do my fucking job properly
I hope WFH can improve diversity in this respect. Diversity is more than race and sexuality and gender, it’s PERSONALITY too. Sadly, the never ending webcam-staring I have to do all day every day seems to be ensuing the playing field isn’t level. The same types who live a gossip and hate knuckling down to smash the work our are the same ones who’ve monopolised the zoom call culture
I work at an organisation which was recognised as one of the most accomodating for people of neurodiversity and other cognative disabilities. I still often feel (as a person with ADHD) like my collegues belittle any symptoms I show so I just mask for 8 hours everyday.
I have to be honest, this shocks me. I would absolutely expect there to be a higher percentage of neurodivergent people who are unemployed than the general population, but for the *majority* or neurodivergent to be unemployed, that is something else entirely
Not surprised.
I can get job interviews, but can’t get further than that. Due to autism/aspergers I just can’t come across as neurotypical despite trying to mask it. So as soon as the in person interview happens, it’s all over.
“Neurodiverse individuals” is incorrect, they’re “neurodivergent individuals” (or neuro-atypical if you prefer). Populations are diverse, individuals aren’t.
This is a terrible article and a very misleading headline. They define neurodivergence as people with Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia etc. Then use that definition to get the 15-20% of the population figure. But for the employment statistic, they only report on the proportion of people with autism who are in employment and generalise that across the entirety of the neurodiversity spectrum.
This is misleading, the title should be “Most individuals with autism are not in employment”.
This is a very real issue, and shows that our working environments might not provide the support needed for these individuals. So I don’t understand the need for making this misleading claim.
What incentives exactly are there for employers to hire disabled employees? We’ve made it so that employers need to provide reasonable accommodations for disabled employees but that just adds on costs and hassle. So what carrot are we giving them to not disregard people with disabilities?
Otherwise if the choice came down to 2 equally qualified candidates, the company would choose the fully able one. Or they may choose the able one even if they’re a little less qualified.
I‘m ADHD and in full time employment but constantly wonder if my directors genuinely understand where I come from when I give them reasons behind my silly mistakes and very rollercoaster performance.
I don’t think employers or the government understands that disabled people in general need the right job because if your whole life becomes work and just recovering from that takes so much effort theres literally nothing left it’s like a normal bad job on steroids. It will fuck up a disabled person. So they put us in any old job. I’ve had blind friends told they should try getting a job at a taxi firm driving cars. It’s insane to the point most people with a mental illness wouldn’t even be that stupid.
Next time you feel bad about needing meds to function and even then you struggle you can always say ‘at least I don’t think a blind person can drive a bus.’
Right, call my maths basic, but I’m going to use the first stats quoted in the article:
15-20% of the population is neurodiverse (est)
Only 20% of those who are neurodivergent are in employment.
4.2% of the overall population are unemployed (I assume this excludes retiree’s and those who are economically inactive through ill-health or being full time carers for family).
If 15% of the population is neurodiverse and 80% of those were unemployed; then surely the baseline unemployment rate would be 8M people of working age, who aren’t full time carers? That would be nearer 12% of the population; or 3x what’s being quoted.
Granted, I’m a couple of vodka’s down, but the numbers quoted here don’t seem to make much sense…
“Neurodiverse” can’t typically do as many jobs, and required “reasonable adjustments” outright exclude them from many professions. There’s no epileptics in the Army, or autists in GP surgeries. Consider the burden also of adjustments; take wheelchair access, for example. Big corporations can relatively easily cover the expense of ramps, lifts, etc, when they have 1000s of employees, but small firms/consultancies simply don’t have the budget.
Another interesting case is dyslexia. Around 1 in every 10 people have it in the UK. Most well-paying jobs in the UK require reading and writing literacy, so this protected disability actually is detrimental to work performance in a number of areas that others might have to pick up the slack, but not for any more money due to “worker protection” laws. I accept that “dyslexics” *can* possess good problem-solving skills, but so can many people that can also read and write- somebody with superior reading & writing skills *and* problem-solving skills are better; *worth more (*in terms of pay etc). Interestingly, dyslexia is controversial amongst experts as it has no firm scientific basis- there’s no set of objectively falsifiable statements that define it. That dyslexia is regarded as one of the most common “learning difficulties,” this also draws into the question the scientific basis of “neurodiversity” as well; that is to say the distinctions/”spectrums” within neurodiversity seem incredibly arbitrary.
Yeah cause we get treated like shit, we have our accomodations ignored by our employers that then makes us slip up and eventually get fired, then you have unions that gaslight you by saying it isn’t their problem.
Then you have interviews where it becomes immediately obvious the people interviewing you don’t like you just because you seem a tad weird, the DWP don’t want to do shit for you, you get so stressed you need help from mental health professionals that then turn around and say it’ll be 4 years before your appointment.
And then you have to sit there once a year watching as everyone bangs on about autism awareness month asif they actually give a shit.
I mean I just got sent a referral letter with a 30 month waiting time for ADHD assessment, and I suspect I am suffering from chronic depression and C-PTSD too. God knows when I will be able to address those issues. I guess I’ll have to save to be seen privately, or go without. This on top of a physical disability that I receive PIP for. I’d be a real asset to the workplace, or at least Jeremy Cunt seems to think so.
I’ve not been able to work since I was about 18 as a bar tender and that job was hell for me and that was even before some of my worse mental illness had been triggered by some really traumatic events. But even now I am expected to try and “overcome” my Depression, anxiety PTSD, Possible ADHD (which I’m not going to be able to get tested for for at least 3 more years) and maybe being on the spectrum, Not to mention my physical disabuilities I’ve had since birth. Every time I am forced to go into the job center, because I am stuck on universal credit when I was on disability in the past, I am scared they will turn to me and say something like “Ok it’s time to stop faking it and get a job or we are removing your only source of income” or “We get that things are hard for you but they are hard for everyone, you are just going to need to man up and deal with it.” and I don’t know what I’d do if that day came.
It’s not like I don’t want to work, I’d love to make my own money and be able to not feel like I am a sponge but I just know they will push me into some low end job dealing with people and I’m not sure I can do that again, I feel like a job like that would slowly kill me if I didn’t end up doing it first.
After I stopped telling employers I’m autistic when applying for jobs I started getting offered a lot more interviews. The stigma is real.
I’ve had less job interviews, read: none, since I started including my autism diagnosis letter in my applications even in planes like tesco that supposedly give you a guaranteed interview if you’re disabled. It’s so disheartening because I do a lot of volunteer work and generally enjoy working and filling my time but most times I hear back from places it’s “we aren’t rejecting your because you’re autistic, we’re rejecting your because you aren’t a people person or there are other applicants that are more open and communicable”. At this point I’ve just realised that no one wants me to be employed so for now I’ve stopped trying because I feel like I have to either hide my disability or play it up more and neither of those options make me feel like a valued member of society
Even when you manage to get and hold a job employers won’t do any adjustments to help you. This is the problem I’m facing after being diagnosed with ADHD 3 years ago (today, it’s my ADHDversary!). I’ve started doing sneaky little adjustments of my own without telling anyone. So far, nobody has noticed the 15 minute embargo on last minute appointment bookings I’ve given myself. I’m doing an experiment to see how long it’ll take for anyone to notice I’ve not been in the office, but elsewhere on site as the office is a sensory hell.
Just getting a job is a nightmare. I get interviews quite easily, but they want someone good at interviews, not someone who needs time to process how to answer questions and who needs clarification on what they mean sometimes. The interview process is inherently ableist.
*neurodivergent.
Neurodiversity is the variety of brain types across a population or group. Individuals are neurodivergent, not neurodiverse.
This figure keeps coming up, but we need to remember the bias present in the diagnostic process. If you weren’t recognised as neurodivergent as a child, it can be very difficult for many people to access assessment as an adult, so we have a lot of adults who aren’t officially neurodivergent whose employment status we don’t know.
In many places having a job or being in a relationship is seen to be coping with life so you get screened out of the assessment process early on. If you don’t have the money for a private assessment or don’t add the results to your medical records, you’re not included in the figures.
I’m autistic, with ADHD dyspraxia and BPD when I said this to universal credit they would only recommend retail which I can’t cope with so was just permanently written off, I don’t even know what I can actually cope with
I’ve worked most of my life, only pausing every 3 or 4 years to have a major shutdown / depressive episode of roughly a year in duration each time.
Working and commuting comes at a cost. My home life is a mess, I’ve given up on relationships, and my “career” ran its course ages ago because I crashed out too many times.
So recently I’ve been trying to pace myself more, by doing minimum responsibility manual work and relatively short hours, close to home. That has gone reasonably well in terms of crisis prevention, except I’m skint and as you say workplace adjustments are non-existent. They’re basically just used as a way of getting you to declare your weaknesses and then anything you ask for is written off as unnecessary or unreasonable. That info can then be used to constructively get rid of you for being a liability.
This starts with the universal obsession of wanting everyone to be a “flexible team player” when my no.1 priority is to have one job and be left alone to get on with it. Even for introvert NTs that’s a tall order, also completely unnecessary. Good team-building takes account of differences and specialist strengths, bad management trots out the “team player” mantra to cover up their inadequacies re. staffing, rostering and understanding people.
What’s scary is that DWP don’t understand the need for preventative care either, and nor do they have the faintest clue about mental health issues in general. They regard all medical issues in broken / not broken terms. The fact that someone is ALWAYS going to be different, and needs time and space just to sustain “normal” living, is completely foreign to them. So far from being a refuge when times are hard, claiming ESA or UC is a hugely stressful shit-storm.
Both of my shoulders are now “frozen” (which sounds trivial until you experience the pain) so my low-stress manual job has also gone out of the window, possibly for 18 months to 2 years or maybe even longer, according to the NHS.
So now I’m physically broken, having already proven to be incapable of sustaining intellectual work. I’m not a people person, my attention span is poor – still waiting on an ADHD assessment after 3 years in the queue – and I’m in my late 40s so learning new skills is getting harder. But if I go to DWP they’ll say “Well you’ve done office work before!!” ignoring all the times I burnt out, lost relationships, got in debt, felt suicidal etc. etc. as a direct result of pushing myself too hard to fit in.
We like to think things are getting better but that’s really a superficial veneer. The odds are stacked against you. It’s going to take a lot more work before we see really meaningful change, but at present no-one seems particularly interested. It’s easier for Government and employers NOT to understand, and to write off your experience and concerns.
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It annoys me the way we’ve starting calling autistic people “neurodivergent” now. Yes, I know it covers other conditions too (I for example have ADHD which falls under that umbrella I think, certainly has some crossovers) but it smacks of people wanting to avoid using the term “autistic” in a well meaning way, but basically suggesting there’s something offensive or wrong about the label autistic.
Anyway, that aside, I don’t see why it’s surprising in the slightest that people who have a condition that means they struggle with social interaction, communication, and personal development, are not in employment.
EDIT – forgot to put my main point in, a question in fact – What should/could employers do? Would be interesting to know. I must admit I’m slightly ignorant on that aspect.
As an autistic man I have noticed efforts to meet the “reasonable accommodation” clause in inclusivity legislation are generally quite pathetic, generally token at best and more for someone in management to be able to slap themselves on the back for being so empathetic and caring rather than actually meeting the needs of disabled workers.
I’m quite sensitive to light and noise. I sit in a big open office with bright white fluorescent lighting. Asked for noise cancelling headphones, nope sorry buy them yourself if you want them. Asked if we could maybe install a switch so I could turn off the light right above my desk when its getting too much, nope too disruptive for other workers. Asked for maybe a quiet room where I could go for 10 or 15 minutes if I need to unwind, nope no spare space anywhere, not even a cupboard or a closet. Actual provisions offered in the end to meet my needs as a person with a recognized disability? Nothing, deal with it or find a job elsewhere.
I could go on at length but I am in my 30s now and can count the number of positive experiences I have had even with medical experts on one hand. You aren’t in a wheelchair so the suspicion is always there that you’re idk just trying to get attention or be different or something. Someone actually taking you at face value and listening to you in good faith with the pure intention to actually help you is incredibly incredibly rare, most of the time they just seem to want to find some little statement they can use to dismiss you with something along the lines of “well everyone feels like that sometimes” etc. etc.
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I realised how much of my career struggles I can attribute to my autism only in the last year. Being forced into an office cubicle surrounded by people who by my perception are interacting with me weirdly adds such a massive weight to what should be easy work related tasks. I’m constantly managing burnout and fighting boredom in the office to a point of overworking because I find a particular task interesting or feeling sick because the task I hate won’t go away soon enough. Talking to people and having them laugh at me because of what I say or how I say it or what I’m enthusiastic about saps my joy and I find it takes less and less time to find myself beaten into the ground and considering exiting under a train. It’s incredibly hard to manage and knowing that I have this going on means very little for even the most ‘inclusive’ employers really. Free advice? sure, any actual changes? eh…
And really most of the problem comes from the intensity and abundance of the social issues. You can’t just turn those off. Only through getting older and getting a diagnosis have I learned to work through all this but it still feels like I’m on a time limit. Finally I have found a balance of work from home and in office work so fingers crossed this is the one. That said, I’m still scared.
The fun part, when I’m not employed or wrist deep in a project I feel like my life has no purpose, like I’m nothing and will just expire in my room. It really sucks as an experience. At the least knowing that even when I do the best I can that I will struggle, certainly takes some of the weight off.
One thing that is good, if you have a disability getting guaranteed interview is a lifesaver. Anyway I have a lot of faith in my new job, they said all the right things. if it is just as described i’ll be happy there for a long time
I question this statistic.
That rate of diagnosis in the UK is abysmal.
The people most likely to get it are people who can’t work.
ND’s who can work are far less likely to seek diagnosis or get it, therefore not being counted.
Most corporations only care about the kinds of neurodiversity that benefits their bottom line, i.e. nervous geniuses who can be easily manipulated into over working for under payment. The moment neurodiversity makes someone slightly difficult to handle, they’ll try not to have to deal with the person as quickly as they can.
The headline is so misleading. It says most ND people aren’t in work, but the statistics in the article are just for autism.
The 15% ND number isn’t just people with autism, it includes dyslexia and ADHD etc.
Of course. Every single time I’ve applied for a job and declared that I’m autistic on the form, even if they have that “Guaranteed interview scheme”, I’ve never once been interviewed, so I stopped mentioning it and got an interview every single time.
Those schemes actually make it worse, because it allows employers to pick out neurodivergent people and scrutinise their applications harder than they would anyone else so they can find some other grounds to reject them.
Very believable. We can’t even get our autistic daughter a school placement despite it being a legal requirement.
Once you hit 16, I would imagine finding employment just about impossible.
This ‘neurodiversity’ terminology is interesting
Because looking at what we normally talk about with ‘diversity’ – namely race – there’s obviously no actual difference in capability between any groups so obviously there shouldn’t be under representation because that implies bias
With ‘neurodiversity’ – and that’s a little too dancing around the issue for me as a term – these conditions do genuinely make those who have them worse at interacting with society – so presenting it as simply ‘diversity’ when it has clear negative effects and actual material differences is strange in my opinion
Not surprising. I’ve struggled in every job I’ve been in, from cleaning, to call centre, to healthcare worker. Why? Because employers are inflexible in their processes and treat reasonable adjustments like the plague.
Yes, legally they have to make reasonable adjustments, but the onus is on the *employee* to make sure they do. It’s too easy for employers to fall back on ‘it’s unsustainable for the business’ as an excuse to refuse. I’m literally going through tribunal currently for this exact reason and it’s not easy at all, much less so for an autistic person like me. There’s a very strong possibility I’ll lose my tribunal not because my claim isn’t valid, but because I don’t have the legal expertise or representation to challenge them. I know what they did to me, but putting that in legal terms? Proving it when it was all behind closed doors? Nigh on impossible. Combine that with collusion and lying and it’s a major battle. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken an employer to tribunal for discrimination and it’ll absolutely be the last. It’s easier to just leave a role than hold employers accountable for illegal discrimination.
If you don’t have the ability to fight for your rights, or don’t know what they are, then those ‘legal obligations’ employers have to support you don’t actually help at all.
You have to advocate for yourself, sometimes repeatedly and aggressively and I can’t tell you how exceptionally difficult that can be if you’re ND.
Those figures are astounding; I can grasp the 15-20% being neurodivergent which seems to broadly match my experiences (maybe even being under reported as it’s a very broad term) but 85% of people on the autistic spectrum being unemployed seems… well, wouldn’t that be 17% of the working population, if you take 20% neurodivergency? Or are they comparing apples and oranges and taking 20% neurodiverse but then using a specific subset of ASD? My brain is hurting
ETA – just to clarify, I am aware that neurodivergency doesn’t just include ASD so I suspect they are pulling a sneaky here…
Edit 2 – I left out a “they” in between “or are… comparing”. Kinda crucial to the context.
My experience with dyslexia in the workplace has been quite poor, and I don’t have it too bad (I’m classed as mid dyslexic). Even with Occupational Health depts anything is only ever a “recommendation” and the company is under no actual obligation to oblige these.
My experience has ranged from very accommodating all the way through to “this obviously means you can’t do your job correctly and don’t deserve a career” (I had a disciplinary for making a typo in an email title which made a different but correct word).
Until companies are forced to provide “recommended” accommodations I don’t see things improving. I’ve had to job hop just to find places which “accept me as I am” and treat me like another person. It’s really hard going into a new job and having to disclose to people you’ve just met “hey I will need additional help with things” when you’ve had bad experiences and don’t know if this will end up being another. I simply couldn’t cope with stress a couple of times in the past over this and I know several who have given up trying because the “good” companies are so few and far between.
Generally sensory issues are completely ignored when talking about autism (or ADHD for that matter). It’s getting better, but HR and companies don’t seem to realize that a lot of those “adjustments” are sensory which is such a primary source of distress…
I’ve got three Autistic children, I’m terrified of them going into work. My eldest is 16, and he wants to go into the world of architecture, or help people in developing nations build housing, using local resources. He’s got big ambitions, and it feels horrible knowing the reality is that he’s unlikely to fulfill that potential. Between the realities of trying to work as an Autistic person, and the way the current government are, I’m at the point of no hope
Well that’s a backhanded compliment to myself for bagging a decent office job.
It’s ok however, because if you cannot work, the govt have said they’ll ignore all medical evidence and sanction you for not working.
They truly have no soul, still pushing the bs that mental health is something made up by lazy people who don’t want to get a job.
I can’t imagine the damage the latest decision to inflict toucher sanctions on unwell a disabled people will cause.
This report is ignoring the amount of neurodiverse people in the workplace who refuse to get diagnosis out of fear of repercussions or backlash. I have ADHD and other mental/physical conditions myself and have never been unemployed despite suffering with my conditions.
In fact, despite having said conditions and never really truly getting any accommodations as a result of working in the NHS for the most part, I have managed to climb the corporate ladder thanks to therapy and medication. A few weeks I went from my Band 5 job into a Band 7.
Having a disability of any kind is incredibly expensive and realistically speaking, no one should be living on Universal Credit and be expected to manage things appropriately, as it is not enough for neither people with or people without disabilities.
I dunno if I’m neurodiverse but find people draining as fuck. Weirdly I’m more an extrovert than introvert, I LOVE meeting new people I often go to bars alone, and probably will tonight in soho unless my wife changes her mind and joins me, I’m not an intro. But I HATE small talk when I’m focused on a task. I can’t stand the mindless chatter so many others rely on for “connection” and validation. In this way, i empathise hugely with neurodiverse types who find interaction draining. It leave me with no energy left to do my fucking job properly
I hope WFH can improve diversity in this respect. Diversity is more than race and sexuality and gender, it’s PERSONALITY too. Sadly, the never ending webcam-staring I have to do all day every day seems to be ensuing the playing field isn’t level. The same types who live a gossip and hate knuckling down to smash the work our are the same ones who’ve monopolised the zoom call culture
I work at an organisation which was recognised as one of the most accomodating for people of neurodiversity and other cognative disabilities. I still often feel (as a person with ADHD) like my collegues belittle any symptoms I show so I just mask for 8 hours everyday.
I have to be honest, this shocks me. I would absolutely expect there to be a higher percentage of neurodivergent people who are unemployed than the general population, but for the *majority* or neurodivergent to be unemployed, that is something else entirely
Not surprised.
I can get job interviews, but can’t get further than that. Due to autism/aspergers I just can’t come across as neurotypical despite trying to mask it. So as soon as the in person interview happens, it’s all over.
“Neurodiverse individuals” is incorrect, they’re “neurodivergent individuals” (or neuro-atypical if you prefer). Populations are diverse, individuals aren’t.
This is a terrible article and a very misleading headline. They define neurodivergence as people with Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia etc. Then use that definition to get the 15-20% of the population figure. But for the employment statistic, they only report on the proportion of people with autism who are in employment and generalise that across the entirety of the neurodiversity spectrum.
This is misleading, the title should be “Most individuals with autism are not in employment”.
This is a very real issue, and shows that our working environments might not provide the support needed for these individuals. So I don’t understand the need for making this misleading claim.
What incentives exactly are there for employers to hire disabled employees? We’ve made it so that employers need to provide reasonable accommodations for disabled employees but that just adds on costs and hassle. So what carrot are we giving them to not disregard people with disabilities?
Otherwise if the choice came down to 2 equally qualified candidates, the company would choose the fully able one. Or they may choose the able one even if they’re a little less qualified.
I‘m ADHD and in full time employment but constantly wonder if my directors genuinely understand where I come from when I give them reasons behind my silly mistakes and very rollercoaster performance.
I don’t think employers or the government understands that disabled people in general need the right job because if your whole life becomes work and just recovering from that takes so much effort theres literally nothing left it’s like a normal bad job on steroids. It will fuck up a disabled person. So they put us in any old job. I’ve had blind friends told they should try getting a job at a taxi firm driving cars. It’s insane to the point most people with a mental illness wouldn’t even be that stupid.
Next time you feel bad about needing meds to function and even then you struggle you can always say ‘at least I don’t think a blind person can drive a bus.’
Right, call my maths basic, but I’m going to use the first stats quoted in the article:
15-20% of the population is neurodiverse (est)
Only 20% of those who are neurodivergent are in employment.
4.2% of the overall population are unemployed (I assume this excludes retiree’s and those who are economically inactive through ill-health or being full time carers for family).
If 15% of the population is neurodiverse and 80% of those were unemployed; then surely the baseline unemployment rate would be 8M people of working age, who aren’t full time carers? That would be nearer 12% of the population; or 3x what’s being quoted.
Granted, I’m a couple of vodka’s down, but the numbers quoted here don’t seem to make much sense…
“Neurodiverse” can’t typically do as many jobs, and required “reasonable adjustments” outright exclude them from many professions. There’s no epileptics in the Army, or autists in GP surgeries. Consider the burden also of adjustments; take wheelchair access, for example. Big corporations can relatively easily cover the expense of ramps, lifts, etc, when they have 1000s of employees, but small firms/consultancies simply don’t have the budget.
Another interesting case is dyslexia. Around 1 in every 10 people have it in the UK. Most well-paying jobs in the UK require reading and writing literacy, so this protected disability actually is detrimental to work performance in a number of areas that others might have to pick up the slack, but not for any more money due to “worker protection” laws. I accept that “dyslexics” *can* possess good problem-solving skills, but so can many people that can also read and write- somebody with superior reading & writing skills *and* problem-solving skills are better; *worth more (*in terms of pay etc). Interestingly, dyslexia is controversial amongst experts as it has no firm scientific basis- there’s no set of objectively falsifiable statements that define it. That dyslexia is regarded as one of the most common “learning difficulties,” this also draws into the question the scientific basis of “neurodiversity” as well; that is to say the distinctions/”spectrums” within neurodiversity seem incredibly arbitrary.
Yeah cause we get treated like shit, we have our accomodations ignored by our employers that then makes us slip up and eventually get fired, then you have unions that gaslight you by saying it isn’t their problem.
Then you have interviews where it becomes immediately obvious the people interviewing you don’t like you just because you seem a tad weird, the DWP don’t want to do shit for you, you get so stressed you need help from mental health professionals that then turn around and say it’ll be 4 years before your appointment.
And then you have to sit there once a year watching as everyone bangs on about autism awareness month asif they actually give a shit.
I mean I just got sent a referral letter with a 30 month waiting time for ADHD assessment, and I suspect I am suffering from chronic depression and C-PTSD too. God knows when I will be able to address those issues. I guess I’ll have to save to be seen privately, or go without. This on top of a physical disability that I receive PIP for. I’d be a real asset to the workplace, or at least Jeremy Cunt seems to think so.
I’ve not been able to work since I was about 18 as a bar tender and that job was hell for me and that was even before some of my worse mental illness had been triggered by some really traumatic events. But even now I am expected to try and “overcome” my Depression, anxiety PTSD, Possible ADHD (which I’m not going to be able to get tested for for at least 3 more years) and maybe being on the spectrum, Not to mention my physical disabuilities I’ve had since birth. Every time I am forced to go into the job center, because I am stuck on universal credit when I was on disability in the past, I am scared they will turn to me and say something like “Ok it’s time to stop faking it and get a job or we are removing your only source of income” or “We get that things are hard for you but they are hard for everyone, you are just going to need to man up and deal with it.” and I don’t know what I’d do if that day came.
It’s not like I don’t want to work, I’d love to make my own money and be able to not feel like I am a sponge but I just know they will push me into some low end job dealing with people and I’m not sure I can do that again, I feel like a job like that would slowly kill me if I didn’t end up doing it first.
After I stopped telling employers I’m autistic when applying for jobs I started getting offered a lot more interviews. The stigma is real.
I’ve had less job interviews, read: none, since I started including my autism diagnosis letter in my applications even in planes like tesco that supposedly give you a guaranteed interview if you’re disabled. It’s so disheartening because I do a lot of volunteer work and generally enjoy working and filling my time but most times I hear back from places it’s “we aren’t rejecting your because you’re autistic, we’re rejecting your because you aren’t a people person or there are other applicants that are more open and communicable”. At this point I’ve just realised that no one wants me to be employed so for now I’ve stopped trying because I feel like I have to either hide my disability or play it up more and neither of those options make me feel like a valued member of society
Even when you manage to get and hold a job employers won’t do any adjustments to help you. This is the problem I’m facing after being diagnosed with ADHD 3 years ago (today, it’s my ADHDversary!). I’ve started doing sneaky little adjustments of my own without telling anyone. So far, nobody has noticed the 15 minute embargo on last minute appointment bookings I’ve given myself. I’m doing an experiment to see how long it’ll take for anyone to notice I’ve not been in the office, but elsewhere on site as the office is a sensory hell.
Just getting a job is a nightmare. I get interviews quite easily, but they want someone good at interviews, not someone who needs time to process how to answer questions and who needs clarification on what they mean sometimes. The interview process is inherently ableist.
*neurodivergent.
Neurodiversity is the variety of brain types across a population or group. Individuals are neurodivergent, not neurodiverse.
This figure keeps coming up, but we need to remember the bias present in the diagnostic process. If you weren’t recognised as neurodivergent as a child, it can be very difficult for many people to access assessment as an adult, so we have a lot of adults who aren’t officially neurodivergent whose employment status we don’t know.
In many places having a job or being in a relationship is seen to be coping with life so you get screened out of the assessment process early on. If you don’t have the money for a private assessment or don’t add the results to your medical records, you’re not included in the figures.
I’m autistic, with ADHD dyspraxia and BPD when I said this to universal credit they would only recommend retail which I can’t cope with so was just permanently written off, I don’t even know what I can actually cope with
I’ve worked most of my life, only pausing every 3 or 4 years to have a major shutdown / depressive episode of roughly a year in duration each time.
Working and commuting comes at a cost. My home life is a mess, I’ve given up on relationships, and my “career” ran its course ages ago because I crashed out too many times.
So recently I’ve been trying to pace myself more, by doing minimum responsibility manual work and relatively short hours, close to home. That has gone reasonably well in terms of crisis prevention, except I’m skint and as you say workplace adjustments are non-existent. They’re basically just used as a way of getting you to declare your weaknesses and then anything you ask for is written off as unnecessary or unreasonable. That info can then be used to constructively get rid of you for being a liability.
This starts with the universal obsession of wanting everyone to be a “flexible team player” when my no.1 priority is to have one job and be left alone to get on with it. Even for introvert NTs that’s a tall order, also completely unnecessary. Good team-building takes account of differences and specialist strengths, bad management trots out the “team player” mantra to cover up their inadequacies re. staffing, rostering and understanding people.
What’s scary is that DWP don’t understand the need for preventative care either, and nor do they have the faintest clue about mental health issues in general. They regard all medical issues in broken / not broken terms. The fact that someone is ALWAYS going to be different, and needs time and space just to sustain “normal” living, is completely foreign to them. So far from being a refuge when times are hard, claiming ESA or UC is a hugely stressful shit-storm.
Both of my shoulders are now “frozen” (which sounds trivial until you experience the pain) so my low-stress manual job has also gone out of the window, possibly for 18 months to 2 years or maybe even longer, according to the NHS.
So now I’m physically broken, having already proven to be incapable of sustaining intellectual work. I’m not a people person, my attention span is poor – still waiting on an ADHD assessment after 3 years in the queue – and I’m in my late 40s so learning new skills is getting harder. But if I go to DWP they’ll say “Well you’ve done office work before!!” ignoring all the times I burnt out, lost relationships, got in debt, felt suicidal etc. etc. as a direct result of pushing myself too hard to fit in.
We like to think things are getting better but that’s really a superficial veneer. The odds are stacked against you. It’s going to take a lot more work before we see really meaningful change, but at present no-one seems particularly interested. It’s easier for Government and employers NOT to understand, and to write off your experience and concerns.