Enablers of and barriers to employment for disabled people – literature review
In 2024, the Manufacturing, Engineering and Logistics Workforce Development Council published a literature review focused on exploring enablers of and barriers to employment for disabled people.
The report focused on employment in general and on the manufacturing, engineering and logistics, and construction and infrastructure industries in particular. Themes included technology, employer readiness and “disability confidence”, social support, and attitudes.
Key findings are summarised below. The full report is available on the Hanga-Aro-Rau website: Unlocking potential: What the research tells us about the current enablers of employment for disabled people external URL
Technology, systems and processes can pose a significant barrier to employment
The report found that, although advances in technology can improve accessibility, some aspects of technology can also be a barrier and decrease accessibility – including around employment. The literature review discussed how the application process can have technological barriers for disabled people. Examples include having application processes entirely online, application websites timing out after a specified amount of time – not allowing for people who need more time to complete the application, as well as inaccessible job application websites for people using screen-readers.
Once employed, other systems and processes, both external to and within an organisation, were identified as barriers for disabled people’s employment, engagement at work, and retention. These include:
- lack of physical accessibility
- inflexible and unreliable public transport
- lack of flexible work options and assistive technology
- organisational processes being long and complex, and employers’ lack of understanding of their own policies and how to implement them.
Improving employers’ disability confidence a key enabler
The report emphasised that negative employer and co-worker attitudes and lack of disability knowledge are significant barriers to the employment and retention of disabled people. However, when employers embodied “disability confidence” this was a key enabler. This means an employer upskilling to address ignorance, prejudice and stigma, providing training, and creating inclusive and accessible workplaces.
The report highlights findings from both New Zealand-based and international research that even when employers have positive attitudes around employing disabled people, there is often a mismatch between an employer’s attitudes and their behaviour. For example, employers report having positive beliefs and experiences of employing disabled people, but data shows an imbalance between employment-related outcomes for disabled people compared with non-disabled people.
Positive social support and relationships enable employment
Positive social supports and relationships were identified as being an enabler to employment of disabled people. Parental support, provided it was not overprotective, was identified as an important enabler for younger disabled people. Research also highlighted the importance of disabled people being surrounded by family and carers who had high expectations and aspirations for them. Observing disabled people succeeding at work was also identified as a positive influence on the employment aspirations of young disabled people.
Challenging industry-specific norms
Research within the construction and infrastructure, and engineering industries highlighted barriers to employment for disabled people, specifically around industry-norms and attitudes. For example, the construction and infrastructure industry is traditionally male and able-bodied, and the engineering industry is used to viewing disabled people as customers as opposed to potential employees and coworkers.
About the research
This literature review explored enablers of and barriers to employment for disabled people. The report also included an overview of the current disability landscape in New Zealand and sections on dispelling myths around employing disabled people. Sources included both New Zealand-based and international research, and grey literature from 2019 onwards. Most of the literature focused on employment broadly as research specific to the target industries was scarce.