Addressing disability disadvantage in the labour market

Disabled people encounter multiple forms of disadvantage in the labour market. This includes a disability employment gap in 2021 of 28.4 percentage points (with 52.7 per cent of disabled people of working age being in work compared with 81 per cent of non-disabled people).1 Disabled people also encounter significant pay disadvantage, with Trades Union Congress analysis of Labour Force Survey data estimating a disability pay gap of 16.5 per cent in 2020/21 (with median pay for disabled employees being £1.90 per hour lower than for non-disabled employees).2 In addition, disabled people report poorer in-work experience than non-disabled people in relation to work-related contentment, job satisfaction, work-life balance, and fairness perceptions.3 Given that 1 in 5 of the working-age population are disabled (increasing to nearly 1 in 3 of 60-64 year olds), these forms of disadvantage affect large numbers of people.