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The world of work is changing and creating challenges and opportunities for the employment inclusion of young people with disabilities. In this article, the perceptions held by young adults with disabilities regarding participation in the future of work are examined.

One-on-one interviews were conducted with Canadian young adults (ages 18–36 years) living with a disability. Participants were asked about their thoughts regarding the impact of the changing nature of work on their labor market involvement and career aspirations. A thematic analysis was performed to identify and examine emergent salient themes.

In total, 22 young adults were interviewed; over half held secure employment. Career aspirations and work-related decisions were primarily shaped by a participant's health needs. The future of work was seen as a more proximal determinant to employment. Digital technologies were expected to impact working conditions and create barriers and facilitators to employment. Participants who indicated being securely employed held positive expectations regarding the impact of digital technology on their work. Participants working precariously held negative appraisals regarding the impact of digital technologies on employment opportunities. The role of technological and soft skills was critical to participating in a labor market reliant on advanced technology. Participants reported barriers to developing job skills related to their disability and their work arrangements.

This research highlights the importance of considering changes in the future of work, especially the digital transformation of the economy, in the design of initiatives which promote the employment inclusion of young adults with disabilities. Despite the significance of the changing nature of work, supporting health needs and encouraging access to secure work arrangements also remain paramount.

The purpose of this research was to conduct an environmental scan describing publicly available resources focussed on working with an episodic disability and providing information and advice about communication and accommodation to support working people living with episodic disabilities.

The authors conducted an environmental scan of English language, freely available, online resources relevant to episodic disabilities in the workplace. The authors used Google™ to conduct structured keyword searches. Resources were reviewed and data extracted about episodic health condition(s) addressed, intended audience(s), resource format and content about health, legal rights, workplace issues, and accommodation and communication needs.

Searches yielded 5,300 links to websites which was supplemented by 101 links identified by partners. Screening for relevance found 210 resources for which data were extracted. Of them, 158 addressed specific episodic disabilities or episodic disabilities generally. Most resources provided useful information addressing communication and accommodation of episodic disability. However, information specific to the episodic nature of disability was not consistently available. The resources generally lacked interactivity which could potentially limit users in applying the information to their personal circumstances.

The findings suggest there are good resources to help workers and managers/supervisors navigate accommodations for episodic disabilities. Research should aim to improve the interactivity of information to personalize resources to worker and workplace needs, as well as formally evaluate resources and their outcomes. Practitioners may wish to recommend resources that specifically address workplace challenges for their clients.

The authors believe this is one of few studies that examined publicly available resources relevant to working with episodic disabilities.

To develop a framework for estimating the economic benefits of an accessible and inclusive society and implement it for the Canadian context. The framework measures the gap between the current situation in terms of accessibility and inclusiveness, and a counterfactual scenario of a fully accessible and inclusive society.

The method consists of three steps. First, the conceptual framework was developed based on a literature review and expert knowledge. Second, the magnitudes for each domain of the framework was estimated for the reference year 2017 using data from various sources. Third, several sensitivity analyses were run using different assumptions and scenarios.

It was estimated that moving to a fully accessible and inclusive society would create a value of $337.7bn (with a range of $252.8–$422.7bn) for Canadian society in the reference year of 2017. This is a sizeable proportion of gross domestic product (17.6%, with a range of 13.1–22.0%) and is likely a conservative estimate of the potential benefits.

Understanding the magnitude of the economic benefits of an accessible and inclusive society can be extremely useful for governments, disability advocates and industry leaders as it provides invaluable information on the benefits of efforts, such as legislation, policies, programs and practices, to improve accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities. Furthermore, the total economic benefits and the benefits per person with a disability can serve as inputs in economic evaluations and impact assessments.

The purpose of this study is to examine factors relating to the decision to proactively disclose a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a concealable stigmatized identity, before experiencing performance issues at work. These factors include stigma consciousness, psychological safety, and job demands. Proactive disclosure is also measured in relation to thriving.

Data were collected through the online research platform Prolific. Variables of interest were measured using surveys of 166 working adults who have ADHD. Path analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The authors hypothesized that stigma consciousness is negatively related to proactive disclosure of ADHD at work and that psychological safety and job demands are positively related to it. The authors further hypothesized that proactive disclosure mediates the relationship between these variables and thriving at work. The results partially support these hypotheses, indicating that stigma consciousness is negatively related to proactive disclosure while psychological safety is positively related. Proactive disclosure fully mediates the relationship between stigma consciousness and thriving and partially mediates the relationship between psychological safety and thriving. Job demands relate to thriving but are not significantly related to proactive disclosure.

Organizations can help employees who have concealable disabilities to proactively disclose them and thrive by providing a psychologically safe environment where disabilities are not stigmatized.

This study diverges from previous studies by measuring positive contextual and individual factors that help employees who have ADHD to thrive in the workplace. A proactive disclosure scale is developed and validated.