“People with autism are very capable of working and are some of the best employees,” said Neil Forester, who, along with business partner Xavier Pinto, created the Spectrum Works Job Fair on Friday. Now in its sixth year, the job fair has grown from 150 participants to nearly 2,000 people looking for work with autism, all wanting to connect with hiring managers and hiring managers at major technology, finance, hospitality and retail companies across the country. Although it has taken place in various cities, the job fair was a virtual event this year and last. Getting companies involved, however, was a struggle. Of the 10,000 employers Forester and his team have approached over the past six years, only 40 companies participated in this year’s job fair. “Most of the time we get no response,” Forester said. The report’s creators say they understand that there is a wide range of skills across the autism spectrum and, while not everyone with autism may be employed, both Forester and Pinto are confident that much of this community can and wants to. to work. And Forester wonders why more employers are not looking at this diverse pool of talent to help address the workforce shortages that so many companies face.

National labor shortage

In the last quarter of 2021, Canadian employers were trying to fill 915,500 jobs, up 63% from the previous year, according to the Statistics Canada. And with the current unemployment rate so low, “almost all industries are facing labor shortages,” Royal Bank economist Nathan Janzen wrote in a financial briefing this week. Even with the demand for workers, barriers to employment remain for Canadians with autism. Data collected by the Public Health Service of Canada found that in 2017, only 33 percent of Canadian adults with autism reported being employed, compared to 79 percent of adults without a disability. Forester said he was unaware of how few neuro-differential employees are in the workforce before the job fair begins. “I just did not realize how big a problem this was or how big a problem it was for the community,” he said. Javier Herrera, a business systems analyst at a Vancouver-based insurance company, attended the Spectrum Works Job Fair last year and received a job offer. (submitted by Javier Herrera)
Javier Herrera is one of the relatively few Canadians working and living with autism. He attended the Spectrum Works job fair last year and received a job offer. “Overall it was a very positive experience. I met not only recruiters, but also other facilitators, coaches, government agencies, nonprofits, as you say,” said Herrera, who now works as a business systems analyst at an insurance company with based in Vancouver. Herrera is encouraged to see that some employers are deliberately pursuing people with autism, but believes that “as a society we are still taking childish steps” to attract more people who are different from neurotransportation in the workforce.

The “Big Four” are buying

That said, there are some companies that specifically use this talent pool, including two of the so-called “Big Four” accounting firms. In recent years, Ernst & Young has taken steps to diversify its recruitment strategy. The multinational started it Neurodiversity Center of Excellence in Toronto in November 2020, with the aim of hiring employees with autism, ADHD or other sensory and cognitive differences. “We are dying for talent as an organization,” said Anthony Rjeily, an associate of Ernst & Young and the national leader in the company’s neurodiversity program. “So we wanted to see if there was a talent pool out there that we could potentially use.” Since its inception, the company has hired 45 neurotransmitters at its offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal – and plans to expand its recruitment to other cities. Rjeily said the initiative paid off more than that, noting that the retention rate among the neurotransmitter candidates hired by the company is 98 percent. “The level of creativity, innovation, productivity they can offer is incredible,” he said. As part of Ernst & Young Canada’s neurodiversity program, program leader Anthony Rjeily says the company has hired 45 people with autism, ADHD or other sensory and cognitive differences. (Craig Chivers / CBC)
Mohit Verma was one of the first people hired by Ernst & Young in 2020 through the neurodiversity recruitment program. “At EY, my job revolves around certain skills such as automation, data science and, to some extent, blockchain,” Mohit told CBC News. “So far I have participated in five to six major projects.” Deloitte Canada is another company interested in hiring neurodifferentiation. In an effort to better understand the barriers and needs in the workplace for people with disabilities, the accounting giant partnered with Auticon Canada, a global technology consulting firm for people with autism, and recently conducted a research with Deloitte on the needs of workers with autism. It might be.

Changing the interview process

The research, “Embracing Neurodiversity at Work: How Canadians with Autism Can Help Employers Bridge the Talent Gap” was conducted between July and October 2021. It included 454 respondents with autism who completed the internet survey, as well as seven companies that had neurodiversity in their workforce were interviewed via video conference. In their survey, they found that 41.7 percent of respondents were underemployed, meaning they worked part-time, on a contract or temporary basis, or did jobs that were “below their educational capacity,” said Roland Labuhn, who is Partner with Deloitte Canada. One of the most striking findings was that the recruitment process itself could be a major hurdle, as 40 percent of respondents said the job interview was a “big challenge” for them. “People we interviewed thought the interview was a trick or scary,” said Labuhn, who is concerned that the formal job interview process could eliminate some highly qualified candidates with autism. In order to improve both the recruitment and retention of employees in neurodiversity, companies such as Deloitte and Ernst & Young are trying to change the interview process so that it focuses more on competence than on how a candidate might behave in a particular scenario. . This type of accommodation offers hope to people like Pinto and Forester. The inspiration for their work report came from Pinto’s concerns about his son’s future. Xavi, 12, is on the spectrum and is “so creative,” his father said. He is “really focused on what he wants to do.” And seeing more employers start enrolling in the job report gives him hope that he is helping to create a world in which his son can pursue his dreams.