Where will political parties find jobs for disabled people?

[wheretoyougonow]

Firstly I would like to state that this is absolutely not a thread about benefits and I don’t want it to descend into one. There are plenty of other threads discussing this.

There is a huge political push to get disabled people into the workforce. I honestly would love to know where these jobs will actually be. There are just under 5 million people under 65 that currently do not work due to disability in England and Wales. Let’s say out of those people the government criteria means 1 million people are deemed to be able to join the workforce. Where? Not in my county. The job market is VERY competitive and there are a distinct lack of jobs in my town and nearest city. In my community these experiences are very common:
16 year olds unable to find traditional Saturday jobs
18 year old unable to get apprenticeships
Young adults who did well/not as well in education unable to find full time employment
Middle aged people, who were made redundant, unable to find a job
Older people unable to retire due to costs of living (meaning there is a decrease in job opportunities- not a criticism of the people working)

Most job adverts are closing early due to the amount of applicants.

Where are these jobs going to come from and please can you get some for the list above whilst you’re at it!!

Lest we forget many people who COULD work but aren't given the opportunity because their employer won't add a ramp, or who can't pass an interview because they can't make eye contact or infer what interview questions are actually trying to answer.

I am not surprised. So when anyone disabled is told to just get a WFH job, show them those figures.
Everyone wants a WFH job nowadays anyway.
To be honest, I would hate to WFH. My home is my home and my safe space. I don't want to live in my workplace.

Oh yes - the number of jobs ds can’t apply to because he can’t get into the building being a wheelchair user.

Even things like supermarket jobs aren’t accessible anymore because most of it is picking work for deliveries.

And the increasing use of AI too. Not from candidates, but employers. Using AI to filter out applicants, and AI bots having weird video interviews with candidates. No chance for someone applying for a job to ask about what they are applying for.

Employers need financial incentives to employ disabled people as they cost more. The problem is the government aren't supporting employers.

The vast majority of disabled people have acquired disability which means they were not born with a disability.

the older you get the more likely you are to be disabled (stroke, accident, heart attack, etc). Someone’s fifties is when the proportion of disabled people really ramps up.

nearly everyone (apart from those who die suddenly and unexpectedly) have a period of disability before they die - and we have many many more elderly people than we used to so there is no surprise there are more disabled people.

See for example this from census 2021

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/disability/articles/disabilitybyagesexanddeprivationenglandandwales/census2021

So the majority of disabled people either are not or working age (over 65 or under 18) or are early retired due to disability. Those who are early retired (such as myself) are not likely to want to or be able to return to the workforce.

Plenty of disabled people can and do hold down FT jobs with reasonable adjustments as required. It’s only on MN where people with no arms and legs are apparently expected to shovel coals down mines. Of course it’s a convenient excuse if you don’t actually want a job and are looking to blame the Govt..

Yes, people say "just get a job in Tesco on the tills", and forget that there are no purely till roles now. You have to be able to do everything.

So a wheelchair user might be fine on the tills, but the reality is that they would be expected to be able to also work in the back warehouse, stack shelves etc. Not going to happen, so they wont even get a look in.

Ds met with a careers advisor today who was able to give advice on how to even get you rCV looked at via the AI screening process.

It was really valuable.

No they are making them pay out for insurance against sickness.

Some cynical ones of us might think that’s another stealth tax!

This is even an issue in the voluntary sector as they don't want someone who can only sit or stand at the till...they want someone to sort through donations and organise shelves etc which filters out many people with disabilities.

Yes, they do. I know some very disabled people who work FT.
But their jobs are specialised and they have a skill/talent that their employer wants and needs. So they bend over backward to provide that for them, and do what they can to accommodate them.

Jobs that are NMW are not going to make adjustments, especially when they have countless able bodied/mind applying for their vacaancies.

I'd like to see more jobs created that help everyone, such as supporting those who struggle with technology to access services, better customer services, more online counselling support etc. Disabled people might well be able to do these jobs, and most want to.
I know of fitness instructors who are no longer able to teach the classes they could due to permanent illness or disability who can still teach other forms/accessible exercise classes, and I'd be very happy for my taxes to be used so they can offer online/ in person versions to help other people with disabilities. Win-win-helps the NHS, makes people happier, and most people with disabilities do want to work, as long as the job can fit round their needs.

So almost any political party which promised to invest in jobs like this, and supported people in this time when getting a job isn't easy (for anyone) would get my vote.

Parties don’t care.

my DD had a CS job. Pre Covid she was part time (2.5 days a week) and did one day every 4 weeks in the office. It was a three minute walk from her flat, and the office day was very flexible due to her disability.

Just before covid after a slight improvement in health she was offered a temporary full time job with one or two days a month in the office at most. For several years she did that. She came off all income based benefits.

The local office then closed and was centralised in the nearest city. Her boss, and bosses boss, said the one day a month would have to continue but two days would only be on very very rare occasions. So DD budgeted £150 a month for taxis and got on with it.

She recently had no choice but to leave as it was decided that everyone had to be in the office at least 2 days a week, and likely building up to 3 dsys. Her boss, his boss and his boss all tried to work it round for her for as long as possible. They also helped her with a flexible work request, that was denied (they are not doing any flexible work requests at the time due to the volume of people asking). She was told she simply had to be in 2 days a week - she had to book a desk, and sit not with her team (there isn’t enough desks so it’s permanent hot-desking and there’s no need for her team to work together except for training so no allocations together), and do exactly what she does at home. There’s no customer facing element, it’s all phone and screen.

Her job was, in the words of her bosses boss, “perfect” for someone with health issues to do WFH. It had monitored outcomes so it wasn’t like people were at home taking the piss.

Luckily for her, as she was working her notice, a relative of one of her bosses offered her a ft wfh role, but it was ridiculous that an arbitrary ‘back to the office’ nearly put her back to having to claim benefits.

They’re not interested in getting people back into work. Just off disability benefits.

Yep m son is one of them
In my LA we have four special schools two primary two secodary
All four have doubled in capacity in the last 15 years are so due to the rising numbers of students

You are so right OP. This is never addressed and is much harder in reality than they seem to wish. It's a laudable ambition though.

The governments data says that there are 5.6 million disabled people who are working.

data here in table 1
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/the-employment-of-disabled-people-2025/the-employment-of-disabled-people-2025

they are now considering working age as 18 to 66 as anyone under 18 should be in education or training and state pension age has gone up.

that’s slightly over 50% of disabled people in employment.

they class disabled as using the equality act definition of a health condition that impacts your life and lasts more than six months.
so eg someone with diabetes is disabled on that definition.

they split it into impacts your life a little and impacts your life a lot.

i suspect the impacts your life a lot group are less likely to be in employment. Someone who has a relatively minor health condition would be considered disabled under the equality act definition but may well still find it relatively easy to access employment.

Supported internships for a year. Which can increase chances of moving into paid employment.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/16/special-needs-internships-youth-jobs-crisis-milburn-review

Goes a bit more in-depth in article.

Sounds great if it can be expanded.

Great for young people.
What about the disabled people in their 40s/50s?

So for a start it's not all political parties.

The LibDems have great policy on this which a number of disabled people helped to put together and spoke on when conference passed this motion. https://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/motions/spring-2021/f6

And the party really does put its money where its mouth is - I'm chronically ill, and I work for the party - part time, fully remote and incredibly flexibly. I'm by no means the only disabled or chronically ill person employed by the party.

For many people with physical illnesses or conditions it is getting that right to flexibile working into law, and fully accepted that is key. Just like pregnancy discrimination took a long time to be unacceptable (and obv sometimes still happens) it will take time to make disability discrimination illegal and abnormal.

And that only works for those of us who have skills and want to work but need adjustments. There's a whole other group of people, mainly with mental illness or neurodivergence, whose conditions make it difficult for them to even consider working. For those people we need a wholesale re-organization of social care and mental health care (something else LibDems have been calling for for a long time) to make work possible.

A friend of mine helps to run an amazing scheme where adults with learning difficulties and mental health issues are supported to work in furniture and bike restoration, and they've just started a new project growing edible flowers and microsalads that they can sell at premium prices and therefore break even on a really labour intensive farming process where everything is planted and weeded by hand. They've helped lots of people regain confidence in themselves and learn how to work - some stay with the business, other's move on to be almost self sufficient. Govt should be setting up projects like this that empower young people rather than just abandon them to a lifetime of neetness.

I worked in employment support (not a government funded programme) and honestly there are some that have been signed off by the DWP as they know they are unemployable (myriad of reasons), some do play the system but even when you find them work they piss off employers, so they get fired... , some are desperate to work and want to, but nobody wants them as employers want fully functioning individuals able to work from minute one (many employers provide very little training or have any space to support staff) and then there's those that can work, but just no roles that pay enough to replace the fact that UC pays your rent, your council tax is heavily subsidised... and then add to the above the employees of an age, a wage, that employers no longer value or feel they can replace by AI! If I believed in conspiracy theories, I'd say this current situation suits someone, somewhere and I have sat in conferences and directly challenged policy makers and politicians as to where the magic list of jobs is that fits all, alongside why they also fail to address education issues, health waiting lists, learning and physical disability adaptations and even geography, as you can't work where you can't get to, where no public transport exists and in housing built on green fields and at an extortionate so called affordable rent, that is anything but - it all adds to the issue. This employment / disability benefits storm has had multiple reports compiled, parliamentary groups held, over decades (yes, nothing new) but still nobody seems to really want to get down and dirty and really get to work and focus on the realities of it. I wonder why?

Not all problems can be fixed at once, surely targeting those who would be on benefits for longer if left is their thinking, plus younger workers may have disabilities which are not as physical so mentoring could be more effective.

I don’t know but not supporting or putting in place schemes for certain groups because of “what about x” isn’t a reason not to do it. And it might be better for the national psyche if there was more communication from our government of what they are achieving than what they are not.

There could also be the assumption that 40+ yr olds have previous experience, contacts, maturity, obviously ones without (of which number very few) will be accepted as being forever on benefits.

I cannot see any negatives to giving youngsters, especially those who have been failed by their education establishments, some resources and input. Help shouldn’t stop there but it’s not the worse place to start. These things take years to get established and implement.

I agree about extra help for young people.
But the reality is that a lot of them need real practical help from services like CAMHS, and it just does not happen. They then end up needing adult services, which is just as bad.
End up staying on benefits with no help from anyone. If you want young people that are unable to work due to MH, then sort out the MH services. Blaming the youngsters, and removing their money is not the way forward.

Not all 40 year olds have experience. I know plenty who have not worked for decades due to their health issues. They have nothing to offer a work place.

Many people know this but starting with help for those into employment, like the young man in the article, autistic but after a year of supported internship is progressing to being an Amazon warehouse operative.

For decades consecutive governments have pandered to the silver vote and ignored the young. The mountain to climb is immense, many things need to change and making work aspirational again, remembering the benefits of working, not just financial but social, mental for the individual and add on the benefit of a more productive ambitious society and changes can happen.

Getting some out of the system needing support means there will be more support for those who will take a bit longer and need more to improve. Doing nothing, or trying to promise and solve everything will mean more people becoming frustrated and more people having less or no support. If you have Amazon waiting with some supported internships then fill them, with youngsters who are ready rather than letting them also get worse. You have to start somewhere. And this sounds more positive than it has been for a while. At least there is an acknowledgment that support and opportunities have to be in place before benefits are whipped from under them.

3.3 million people of working age get pip

if 5 million disabled people are not working then 1.7 million of them are not claiming (disability) benefits

I’d hazard a guess that most of that 1.7 million are early/medicslly retired with a few at uni