Labour market participation
Labour market participation refers to people actively in the labour force, whether employed full or part-time, or unemployed and seeking work.

Indicators reveal that labour market participation is a key issue for persons with disabilities. In 1995, people with disabilities were less than half as likely as persons without disabilities to be participating in the labour market. The rate was lowest for women with disabilities. These low participation rates represent a loss of potential to Canadian society as a whole as well as a barrier to full inclusion and independence for persons with disabilities.

In the 1991 Health and Activity Limitation Survey (HALS), persons with disabilities identified lack of job accommodation and flexible hours, loss of supports and income, and inadequate training as some of the factors that prevented them from participating in the labour market.

Impact of education on participation
Overall, people with higher levels of education are more likely to participate in the paid labour market and educational attainment among persons with disabilities has been increasing. The 1996 Census clearly shows the strong correlation between educational attainment and labour force participation rates among persons with disabilities.

• Of women with disabilities who had a university degree, 66 percent were in the labour market, three times the rate of women with disabilities with less than a high school education;

• Thirty-six percent of men with disabilities who had less than a high school education were participating in the labour market, just over half the rate for university graduates; and

• Seven percent of working age men with disabilities, compared to 17 percent of men without disabilities, had completed a university degree.

Employment and unemployment
For those persons with disabilities who do participate in the labour market, indicators show that they experience disadvantages compared to those without disabilities. For example:

• In 1995, people with disabilities were less likely to have full-time, full-year employment than were adults without disabilities;

• Women with disabilities were the least likely of all groups to have worked full-time for the full year and were the most likely to have gone without work all year;

• Aboriginal persons with disabilities were slightly more likely to have been completely without paid work than their non-Aboriginal counterparts, and were more likely to have worked for only part of the year; and

• Overall, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was almost double that of people without disabilities.

Effects of recession
The recession of the early 1990s had a significant impact on the labour market experience of persons with disabilities. Overall, people with disabilities were hit harder by the recession than were people without disabilities, and recovery was slower for persons with disabilities than for those without. For example:

• Labour market participation by people with disabilities declined to a greater extent than it did for persons without disabilities during the years following the recession. This was most pronounced for older male workers with disabilities, suggesting that many might have entered into early retirement either voluntarily or involuntarily during the recession years;

• Although higher levels of education appear to provide some protection from unemployment, the effect was weaker for persons with disabilities. At every level of educational attainment, persons with disabilities had a higher level of unemployment than did persons without disabilities;

• In the years following the early 1990s recession, people with disabilities found it increasingly difficult to find full-time, full-year work. Although some individuals moved to fewer weeks of work or fewer hours of work per week, the overall trend was a total loss of paid work. For example, in 1990, 44 per cent of men with disabilities had no paid work. This had grown to 52 per cent by 1995;

• While Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal persons with disabilities experienced a loss of paid work between 1990 and 1995, a slightly greater tendency of Aboriginal people with disabilities to remain in the labour market than other persons with disabilities simply resulted in their experiencing a higher rate of unemployment; and

• The Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) shows that the proportion of persons with disabilities with long spells of unemployment (40 or more weeks) increased beginning after 1993, and peaked in 1995 — widening the already significant gap between persons with and without disabilities. While the difference in gap seemed to be narrowing in 1996 and 1997, it had not yet returned to pre-recession levels.