Systematic exclusion of autistic people through recruitment processes?

Abstract

There are many indications that that autistic people are even more socially marginalized in employment than other disabled groups, even at a time of rapid technological development during the fourth industrial revolution, lack of manpower and a growing need for specialized and hard knowledge and skills to solve complicated problems. The aim here was to shed light on exclusionary factors concerning the employment of autistic individuals in Iceland. Job advertisements were collected over a period of about one month and competence requirements were classified and analyzed and six semi-standard interviews were conducted with autistic individuals of working age. The results show stricter requirements for communication skills appear in advertisements for jobs that require expertise, than those at lower skill levels, such as in manufacturing and service jobs. In addition, stricter requirements for communication skills appear in job advertisements in the public sector than in the private sector. Results also indicate that autistic individuals feel that high and vague requirements for communication skills hinder their active participation in the labour market and high demands are made on communication skills in job advertisements for jobs at all skilllevels. Requirements for communication skills can therefore systemically exclude autistic individuals from employment in the Icelandic labour market. The results indicate that organizations in Iceland need to think more carefully about the definition of competence requirements so that they reflect the actual skills that the specified jobs require in order for them to be able to hire the most qualified people for all jobs and to not exclude autistic people at the early stages of the recruitment process. Organizations can work against systematic exclusion of autistic people in the hiring process with well-defined competence requirements used in job advertisement and evaluation of applicants and by developing disability confidence among managers and employees.