as small as a world and as large as alone

3:58am December 12, 2013

slashmarks:

clatterbane:

regionalholidaycaptain:

only 10% of autistic people find jobs im

just gonna go sit in the corner and cry rn i guess

That fits a little too well with the stats here (UK), from several years ago at least. Apparently 88% unemployment for people dx’ed with Asperger’s, and 98% with an autism dx. The highest figure the NAS has come up with is a 15% employment rate. A third of us apparently have no job *or* access to any benefits.

(Though, surprise, the common BS distinctions made have never even made that much difference in results, which further argues against validity there: http://clatterbane.tumblr.com/post/10117322654/people-with-milder-forms-of-autism-struggle-as-adults )

I didn’t actually reblog that WSJ piece, because it didn’t even really address discrimination. Which may be a bigger factor than not finding jobs suited to our own skills. Often more like too many people assuming we don’t have any. Especially if we don’t immediately come across as the kind of person they want to hire.

Knowing that the employment figures really are that terrible actually made me feel slightly better about things, with more reason to think that maybe I’m not just an individual fuckup. When I haven’t had other things interfering with my ability to work (which has often been the case, and is right now), I have been consistently underemployed since leaving college. Having 80% of a BS from the US and absolutely no educational qualifications here probably hasn’t helped over the past 10 years or so, but yeah. The last job I had was a literally backbreaking minimum wage one, which didn’t last more than about 4 months because I did get hurt. And I just can’t do that anymore.

It doesn’t help at all with the finances, but at least I can let up on the self-blame some.

It occurs to me that some of this might be due to the way that people find jobs, although active discrimination is certainly a factor — if I remember correctly, several actual studies on this have found that the vast majority of people get jobs through some form of nepotism; not necessarily knowing the employer, but knowing someone who already works there and can put in a good word to the manager, or who’s friends with someone who has influence on hiring, or has a kid who goes to school with the employer’s kid, or… It can go into quite a long chain, but the long and short of it is, actually applying for jobs is not a very good way to get them. Most people get them through networking, and networking is something that I’m betting a lot of autistic people are going to have trouble with (god knows I can’t do it)

That would be backed up by something an old friend told me, about someone who approached him.  The person (who we both know to be sleazy as fuck) asked him to get him a job at his current prestigious employer.  He… declined.  That guy, working there, would be frightening  I guess this is common practice?

(Tags on this post, and on most future posts, may include tags from the previous person I reblogged from.)

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