ILPC 2027

This UK based study is primarily concerned with disabled people and employment, and seeks to understand how disability discrimination imposed by employers and society can impact on the labour market experience of disabled people. The precise aim is not only to explore how disability is conceptualised within the workplace, but also the changing nature of traditional towards web-based recruitment and selection practices, and to examine whether these evolving recruitment and selection practices create additional barriers for disabled jobseekers. 

This paper is informed by the social model of disability (Oliver, 1990) that is central to the understanding of how discrimination, in form of attitudinal and structural barriers, has impacted on the labour market experience shared by disabled people. Moreover, it acknowledges that disabled people not only experience external oppression in form of social or material restrictions, but also internal oppression in form of socio-cultural processes that generate negative attitudes towards disabled people and sustain the prejudice and stigma attached to their potential (Thomas, 2004). Following that, this paper engages with broader organisational models of ‘ableist’ norms and assumptions and the ‘ideal worker’ to assess the extent to which these perspectives engage with the definition of disability from a social model perspective. It examines how organisations have formed inequality regimes (Acker, 1990) that discriminate towards certain groups of workers. 

Investigating the equality and diversity initiates that organisations have implemented to tackle discrimination in their recruitment; this paper concludes that the primary aim of recruitment and selection is one-sided and that the social model of disability perspective, and a social relational understanding of disability, are largely absent within these practices. Further empirical research is needed in order to highlight the fact that organisations have to consider the impact of attitudinal barriers within their online recruitment and selection practices in order to reduce further structural barriers that hinder disabled people in their job search.

The unique contribution provided by this paper comes from the way it attempts to synthesis ideas and different theoretical approaches from across disciplines including work and employment and disability studies. This study has adopted a qualitative research approach involving semi-structured interviews with employers, disabled jobseeker and their employment advisors. This paper sheds light on how employers’ conceptualisation of disability and understanding is formed by stigma that views disabled people as less able than their non-disabled counterparts. The main intention of this paper is to share disabled jobseekers reported personal experiences of their job search activities, which is also acknowledged by employment advisors from two disabled people’s organisations who have provided employment support to most of these individuals. In particular, how disabled people have responded to attitudinal or structural barriers imposed by organisational practices, in particular online recruitment and selection practices, and were able to craft job search and workplace strategies.