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Canada’s labour market is facing massive shortages. Employers right now just can’t fill jobs. Meanwhile, people with disabilities face much higher rates of poverty and unemployment than non-disabled people. With International Day of Persons with Disabilities upon us, our guest this episode is Rebekah Young, Vice President and Head of Inclusion and Resilience Economics at Scotiabank. She’ll explain how a more inclusive labour market can not only help Canadians with disabilities, but also help solve a persistent economic problem.
Read Rebekah Young's report here.
Key moments this episode:
1:27 — Some big picture numbers around disability in Canada
2:13 — How do those numbers tie into the challenges that labour market is facing?
3:38 — The “mind-blowing” number of Canadians with disabilities who have the potential to work but aren’t getting the chance
4:02 — What’s holding back that large amount of people from being employed?
5:50 — What governments could do to help solve this issue
7:54 — What role private- sector employers could play and why
9:25 — How companies and governments can come together to make the labour market more inclusive
11:28 — A call to action
Transcript:
Stephen Meurice: One of our colleagues just put out an interesting new report.
Rebekah Young: This paper is really a collective call to action.
SM: That’s Rebekah Young, she’s the author of the paper and in it she points out a unique way to not only help address a pressing economic issue in Canada, but also an important social one.
RY: The number of Canadians living with a disability is large and it's growing. And at the same time, we have labour markets that are facing serious shortages.
SM: Employers right now just can’t fill jobs. Meanwhile, people with disabilities face much higher rates of poverty and unemployment than non-disabled people.
RY: And quite frankly, the numbers are simply mind blowing of those Canadians with disabilities that have the potential to work but aren't working.
SM: These are people that can work, but for any number of reasons aren’t given that opportunity.
RY: More than 800,000 Canadians fall into that category, that's a very big number. How can we create better opportunities for those living with disabilities that both benefit those individuals and help the Canadian economy?
SM: Rebekah is the Vice President and Head of Inclusion and Resilience Economics at Scotiabank. And she’ll explain how a more inclusive labour market can not only help Canadians with disabilities, but also help solve a persistent economic problem.
Rebekah, thanks so much for being back on the show.
RY: Thanks for having me.
SM: So, you have this new report that just came out, can you give us some of the bigger context? Say around the number of people with disabilities there are in Canada.
RY: So just to unpack the numbers that we have, and I'll put an asterisk on that, is that we really have stale numbers. That back in 2015, when Canadians were last polled, one in five had at least one disability, and that was over six million Canadians reported having a disability. I mentioned that’s dated to 2015, as Canadians are being polled today as we speak, we're in the middle of a new survey that will determine the number of Canadians that have a disability. I would estimate we're probably looking at something closer to 25%. So, one in four Canadians that would report having a disability. So, the numbers are big, whatever the count is. And they are growing.
SM: So, can you tell us how that ties into the labour market and the challenges that the labour market is currently facing?
RY: Well, I think we all know right now that the Canadian labour market and, quite frankly, many labour markets around the world are very tight, facing extreme labour shortages. So, if you look at the Canadian economy and its labour markets, for example, we saw in October that the unemployment rate was at 5.2%. That is very low on a historic basis. The number of vacancies or the jobs sitting empty are at record high. They're just below a million right now. Even prior to the pandemic, businesses were reporting chronic labour shortages. And just to put that into context, what we know is that one in five Canadians of working age are close to retirement, according to Statistics Canada. So, if you look out over that horizon, things will get worse. And so, you know, we really need to look at how do we enhance the potential or the capacity of Canadian labour markets that in turn drive the engine of the Canadian economy. And so, we need to look at where are the pockets of either underemployment or unemployment. And quite frankly, the numbers are simply mind blowing of those Canadians with disabilities that have the potential to work but aren't working. I would say I carefully use the number measured and reported by Statistics Canada around potential. More than 800,000 Canadians fall into that category of having a disability but having the potential to work. That's a very big number. It's bigger than when we look at, for example, raising female labour force participation or keeping senior Canadians in the workforce longer or even bringing in new Canadians. Those other numbers pale compared to what we consider when we look at Canadians with disabilities.
SM: Do we know the reasons behind that level of unemployment or lack of employment among that huge cohort of people that you're talking about, over 800,00 people? What's the impediment to their being employed?
RY: Yeah, so I would first start out that there is a wide variation in the types of disabilities among Canadians, whether it is mobility impairments, whether it is developmental or mental health, ranging to pain management. So, it's quite different in the impacts on both the capacity and the potential to work. We don’t have great data that breaks down why these individuals aren’t employed. But we have better data out of the U.S. for example and they have actually seen evidence that pandemic factors that have shown you don’t need to be in the physical workplace have actually enhanced opportunities for those with disabilities that are mobility related. So, some of the challenges can be within the workplace itself. They can be related to biases or discrimination within the workplace, to the need for greater accessibility in the workplace. But what we know in the numbers is that Canadians with disabilities are far more likely to be unemployed. The employment number for Canadians with disabilities is at a paltry 60%, so only three in five Canadians are working versus their peers without disabilities, which is at about 80%. So that is a very big gap. And if you look beneath the headlines, it's an even more serious gap for Canadians with severe disabilities or very severe disabilities, whereby only about 30% work. So, it can have a very big consequence on the ability to work, but also the opportunities out there.
SM: So, we're talking with a lot of people in this country. What kind of recommendations did you come up with as you were working on this report? What should governments or employers be doing about this? What are the solutions that you suggest? Maybe, let's start with government first.
RY: Yeah. So, starting with government, the federal government is delivering on a promise it made several years ago at the onset of the pandemic, which was that they were going to develop a federal transfer dedicated to peoples with disabilities. What we know so far is that it is to be income tested and it's to mimic the Canada child benefit that children or the families of children receive. But beyond that, we don't know what it would be other than, you know, a transfer. So, what I tried to do is what would it cost if government alone were to shoulder the bill for lifting these Canadians that are in poverty or deep poverty just to the poverty line? And so, I did quick back of envelope calculations that we’re looking at four to five billion a year for the federal government. That doesn't include another half million that are still below the poverty line, just not in deep poverty. So those are very big numbers even for the federal government that tends to be a bit of a big spender. And so, you know, I say, yes, we need something. There is a gap there on what we do for Canadians with disabilities and particularly those that aren't able to work. But that employment and labour markets really need to shoulder more of the burden. That a person with a disability but employed earns three times as much as a person with disability not employed. So, employment can make an enormous difference, both at that individual level and, consequently, the economic or the government level. So, what I do think is that we need to do more. We have lots of pockets of good initiatives across the country in partnerships with government, private sector, social actors, but they really need to be scaled up massively in order to really get employment at the numbers that both these individuals need and the economy could benefit from.
SM: Right. You mentioned the private sector will also have to take up some of the responsibility. What can they do? What are the impediments there to employ Canadians with disabilities?
RY: There's really good work going on currently, really trying to flesh out that business case. And I would argue there is already a strong business case and I mentioned the labour shortage issues. I also mentioned just the sheer numbers of Canadians that are already in the workforce with disabilities, and that is over 20%, according to Statistics Canada. So even just from a retention perspective, employees have a real interest to ensure that their workplace is accessible and that it is a place where persons can fulfill their potential. So just from a retention basis, there is a strong case. Also from an attraction, as I mentioned, the vacancy rates are really high and so many of these Canadians with disabilities represent untapped potential that if the workplace is accessible, if companies can foster greater accessibility, that they have a whole new source of workforce. And we're also seeing increasing studies that are looking at the innovation and the, you know, the different unique perspectives that these Canadians can bring to the workplace and in turn, influence decision making. And quite frankly, workforces that reflect the society within which the companies operate is really important given just that prevalence of persons with disability within Canadian society now. So that's just some of the high-level business case for it. But there are going to be cases, quite frankly, where it is going to require partnerships where companies alone may not be able to be best positioned alone, to be able to create these opportunities. And this is where, to name one example, the federal government is planning to double what it calls the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities., And that would have, for example, a community coordinator would provide skills, training, education, even wage subsidies and it has proven very successful but at a very small scale. So, it's able to improve labour outcomes, able to improve incomes for those individuals and the social benefit outweighs the cost of the program.
SM: Right, right. So can something like that be scaled up?
RY: So, that program currently only reaches 4,000 people, so even doubling it is not going to do a whole lot. So, we need something in between, sort of that very intense model helping in some of the more challenging cases. Up to the case where the business case is very clear and compelling. And that's where I think we really need to look at new innovations to really close some of those gaps.
SM: So, it seems like it's about making labour markets more inclusive.
RY: Absolutely. I would admit, though, that there is no panacea. So, there isn't one policy or one solution that is going to work for everyone or for every employer. So, it is going to require a whole toolkit. And we do have a bunch of tools in that toolkit already spread between the federal and provincial governments. And so, I would say, first and foremost, let's look at that toolkit and see if some of those policies and programs are still fit for purpose. And this paper really argues that drawing more folks into the labour force, providing accessible workplaces, and the answer to how you provide that is going to be different in different circumstances, but that is going to be a big part of the solution. And quite frankly, I think we've only scratched the surface in figuring out how to do that.
SM: So, what's the message you're trying to get across to Canadians with this report?
RY: I think this is really a call to action. Very big challenges ahead of us. The numbers are very big in terms of both the numbers of Canadians affected and the impact at the individual and the collective level. But they’re too big to ignore, and they're only going to get bigger if we don't figure out how to deal with them. And so that's really the message is that governments alone can't do it, private sector alone can't do it, that we all have a different part to play, but also together collectively, we're really going to have to figure out how to address some of these challenges.
SM: For the sake of people with disabilities, as well as for the economic health of the country.
RY: Absolutely.
SM: Okay. We'll leave it there. Rebekah, thanks so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.
RY: Thank you.
SM: I've been speaking with Rebekah Young, the Vice President and Head of Inclusion and Resilience Economics at Scotiabank.
We’ll put a link to Rebekah’s new report in the description and on our show page at Scotiabank.com/perspectives. That’s also where you can find a transcript of this episode.
The Perspectives podcast is made by me — Stephen Meurice — Armina Ligaya and our producer Andrew Norton.