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Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the lives of people with disabilities (PWD). How the pandemic affects the employment of PWD and employers has yet to be determined. We aimed to investigate the employment consequences of the pandemic as experienced by PWD and employers. T...

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Autores principales: Wong, Jasin, Ezeife, Nnaemezie, Kudla, Angelika, Crown, Deborah, Trierweiler, Robert, Capraro, Pamela, Tomazin, Stephanie, Su, Han, Pham, Tri, Heinemann, Allen W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8761523/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35037157
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10926-021-10012-9
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author Wong, Jasin
Ezeife, Nnaemezie
Kudla, Angelika
Crown, Deborah
Trierweiler, Robert
Capraro, Pamela
Tomazin, Stephanie
Su, Han
Pham, Tri
Heinemann, Allen W.
author_facet Wong, Jasin
Ezeife, Nnaemezie
Kudla, Angelika
Crown, Deborah
Trierweiler, Robert
Capraro, Pamela
Tomazin, Stephanie
Su, Han
Pham, Tri
Heinemann, Allen W.
author_sort Wong, Jasin
collection PubMed
description Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the lives of people with disabilities (PWD). How the pandemic affects the employment of PWD and employers has yet to be determined. We aimed to investigate the employment consequences of the pandemic as experienced by PWD and employers. The research questions were: (1) What employment effects do PWD experience, and what business changes do employers encounter as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) What challenges have PWD encountered during the pandemic? Methods Cross-sectional online surveys of 733 PWD and 67 employers in the Midwestern United States. Results Compared to non-disabled peers, PWD encountered more challenges in employment during the pandemic. We found high percentages of both employers and PWD experiencing employment changes and business shutdown during the pandemic. For PWD whose employment was not affected, 14.6% of the participants (n = 107) expected a loss of income and worried about the economic uncertainty of the pandemic. Unemployment for PWD is high due to illness or disability, being laid-off or furloughed, business reductions, and not feeling safe to work. However, only about 18.6% of unemployed PWD (n = 16) received pay or benefits for the time they were not working even though more than half filed for unemployment benefits. Conclusions The pandemic adversely affected employment of PWD as reported by workers and employers. Findings parallel the experience of the non-disabled workforce, but reveal vulnerabilities that reflect disability consequences and the need for job accommodations. Results reveal emergent needs for policy supports to reduce the disparities experienced by PWD in the workplace. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10926-021-10012-9.
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spelling pubmed-87615232022-01-18 Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers Wong, Jasin Ezeife, Nnaemezie Kudla, Angelika Crown, Deborah Trierweiler, Robert Capraro, Pamela Tomazin, Stephanie Su, Han Pham, Tri Heinemann, Allen W. J Occup Rehabil Article Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected the lives of people with disabilities (PWD). How the pandemic affects the employment of PWD and employers has yet to be determined. We aimed to investigate the employment consequences of the pandemic as experienced by PWD and employers. The research questions were: (1) What employment effects do PWD experience, and what business changes do employers encounter as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) What challenges have PWD encountered during the pandemic? Methods Cross-sectional online surveys of 733 PWD and 67 employers in the Midwestern United States. Results Compared to non-disabled peers, PWD encountered more challenges in employment during the pandemic. We found high percentages of both employers and PWD experiencing employment changes and business shutdown during the pandemic. For PWD whose employment was not affected, 14.6% of the participants (n = 107) expected a loss of income and worried about the economic uncertainty of the pandemic. Unemployment for PWD is high due to illness or disability, being laid-off or furloughed, business reductions, and not feeling safe to work. However, only about 18.6% of unemployed PWD (n = 16) received pay or benefits for the time they were not working even though more than half filed for unemployment benefits. Conclusions The pandemic adversely affected employment of PWD as reported by workers and employers. Findings parallel the experience of the non-disabled workforce, but reveal vulnerabilities that reflect disability consequences and the need for job accommodations. Results reveal emergent needs for policy supports to reduce the disparities experienced by PWD in the workplace. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10926-021-10012-9. Springer US 2022-01-17 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8761523/ /pubmed/35037157 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10926-021-10012-9 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Article
Wong, Jasin
Ezeife, Nnaemezie
Kudla, Angelika
Crown, Deborah
Trierweiler, Robert
Capraro, Pamela
Tomazin, Stephanie
Su, Han
Pham, Tri
Heinemann, Allen W.
Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers
title Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers
title_full Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers
title_fullStr Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers
title_full_unstemmed Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers
title_short Employment Consequences of COVID-19 for People with Disabilities and Employers
title_sort employment consequences of covid-19 for people with disabilities and employers
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8761523/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35037157
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10926-021-10012-9
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