After becoming paralyzed in 2009, Beka Anardi never thought about working again. That is, until the pandemic hit.
As millions of people began working remotely, Anardi realized she could resume her career as a recruiter. She sent her resumé to a few people in her network at the end of last year and was employed within a matter of weeks. The 41-year-old now works full-time from her house in Bellevue, Washington, where she can comfortably navigate her wheelchair, avoid the hassle of commuting and take care of her bodily needs in the privacy of her own home.
“If you had asked me two years ago if I would ever return to work, I would’ve said no. It never entered my mind as a possibility until everyone was working remote,” said Anardi, who lost the use of her legs during the birth of her first child, after which doctors discovered and removed a tumor that had been pressing against her spine. “It’s a much more comfortable situation when you can interview over Zoom and people don’t see a wheelchair as the first thing about you.”
Anardi is part of the second-largest minority group in the US — adults with disabilities. The 42.5 million disabled Americans make up 13% of the civilian population, compared with the nearly 19% that is Hispanic and the almost 12% that's African American, according to 2021 Census data released on Sept. 15. After suffering some of the worst job losses during the initial phase of the pandemic, people with disabilities are now benefiting from the remote-work trend it triggered. Advocates hope they will continue to reap such rewards, even as companies demand that employees return to the office.
There are signs the disabled employment boom could last. Companies are struggling to fill millions of open positions and are expanding their search to reach untapped pools of workers. The tight-as-a-drum labor market gives employers an incentive to maintain the remote-work benefit for disabled employees, which also helps companies diversify their workforces.
Adults with disabilities have rarely been employed in such high numbers, thanks in large part to the removal of one of the biggest obstacles to having a job — commuting. About 5.6 million disabled men and women ages 16-64 were employed in August — a slight dip from June’s record but still historically elevated, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The group’s labor-force participation rate — the share of the population that is working or looking for work — was 37.6% in August, up nearly five percentage points from April 2020 and hovering close to a record in data back to 2008, according to an analysis by the Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire.
By contrast, the labor-force participation rate of working adults without disabilities has risen almost four percentage points in the same period.
All of this has made Thomas Foley a lot more popular these days. As executive director of the National Disability Institute, he’s seeing more interest in the nonprofit’s employment services, which can help companies design inclusive hiring and retention practices. That may mean adding imagery to job postings showing someone in a wheelchair or with a service dog, or having technology that reads what’s on a screen for a person like Foley, who is blind.
“We see it all the time, a template that may be in place for 15 to 20 years. They really need to lift 40 pounds? They really need a driver’s license?” Foley said. “You want to make sure there’s nothing in job descriptions or ads that’s going to put people off.”
There’s reason to believe the disabled population figures, which don’t include those with long Covid, are higher. The symptoms of long Covid are still emerging and are difficult to diagnose, but most sufferers typically experience fatigue, shortness of breath and difficulty concentrating, also known as “brain fog.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July 2021 said long Covid can be considered a disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act, but the Census survey doesn’t ask about it.