Kessler Foundation and National Organization on Disability Survey
Although corporations recognize that hiring employees with disabilities is important, most are hiring very few employees with disabilities or proactively making efforts to improve the employment environment for workers with disabilities, a new survey funded by the Kessler Foundation and the National Organization on Disability finds. Released in conjunction with National Disability Employment Awareness Month, the survey (153 pages, PDF) found that while 70 percent of corporations have diversity policies or programs in place, only two-thirds of those include disability as a component, and only 18 percent of companies offer an education program aimed at integrating people with disabilities into the workplace. The report also found that a majority of employers (62 percent) perceive the costs of hiring a person with a disability to be the same as hiring a person without a disability.
