Report

Mind the disability employment gap

This report from UK think tank the Centre for Social Justice calls on the new government to ensure that the needs of disabled and sick people are at the heart of their plans to ‘get Britain working’.

In 2021 the Centre for Social Justice published Now is the Time, a landmark report on disability in the UK. A key purpose of that report was to discuss the employment landscape for disabled people.

Since then, this issue has rocketed up the political agenda. Rising numbers of people out of work due to disabilities or health conditions, and claiming health-related state benefits, is now a fundamental issue within labour market policy. Progress has been made since the publication of Now is the Time, but this has often been slow or insufficiently ambitious.

Mind the Disability Employment Gap provides an update on the employment landscape for disabled people, warning that economic inactivity is a “defining challenge” for the new Labour government. It points to the number of people out of work due to disabilities or health conditions and claiming health-related benefits only continuing to rise.

The report highlights how almost a quarter of working age adults are now reporting a disability or significant impairment due to a health problem. More than half of young people, 16-24 year olds, who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs), are economically inactive – amounting to over half a million people (552,000). The number of inactive 16-24 year olds has risen by over 50 per cent in just three years.

This new report calls on the new government to “ensure that the needs of disabled and sick people and the barriers they face in the world of work are at the heart of their plans to ‘get Britain working’.