©Reuters. Lucy Trieshmann celebrates their 28th birthday in Brooklyn, New York, USA, on May 26, 2023. Lucy Trieshmann/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
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By Amina Niasse
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Covid-19 has changed the trajectory of Lucy Trieshmann’s nascent legal career.
Having Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare inherited disorder, Trieshmann found in-person law classes unbearable without spending part of the time lying on the floor. Lockdowns in March 2020 meant classes went online, and before long Trieshmann found his groove attending from home, eventually landing an American Civil Liberties Union grant that involved working remotely.
“I was able to appear in New York real estate court on behalf of clients and have the energy for them because they were remote,” said Trieshmann, who uses she/they pronouns.
Trieshmann ranks among about 2 million Americans with disabilities who have found a job or started looking for one since December 2019, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. That’s an unprecedented 30% increase in workforce participation from a group that before the pandemic saw four in five disabled people on the sidelines, a rate now down to three in four.
Workforce participation of people with disabilities has increased alongside a resurgence in the broader U.S. population identified in BLS data as disabled, experts say driven by greater self-identification by those suffering from debilitating, long-term mental illnesses of COVID. For many, the abundance of remote work options that have flourished during COVID have opened up job opportunities long closed to them. A decidedly strong job market also helped.
“A tight job market raises all the difficulties, and working from home or remote working has expanded opportunities for some segments of disabled workers, and this has been a boost to their employment opportunities,” said Andrew Flowers , labor economist at Appcast, a digital agency. recruiting company.
As 2024 begins and more employers promote return-to-work policies, this could mean these gains are at a turning point. Indeed, while BLS data smoothed to six-month horizons shows an ongoing upward trend, data viewed over three-month periods has begun to flatten.
LONG-TRANSPORT AWARENESS
Netia McCray’s experience may partly explain the dynamic increase in employment of disabled people.
Bedridden by COVID in early 2020, she suffered severe seizures, reduced cognitive function and blood microclotting that prompted her to step back as CEO of the nonprofit Mbadika for l ‘instruction.
McCray bounced between part-time work and furloughed status. When she returned to the office in 2022, she was with a new sense of identity: disabled, long-time COVID sufferer.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 7.5% of Americans aged 18 and older have suffered from long-term COVID, a condition that has significantly limited activity for 25% of the sick. Symptoms range from fatigue to mental confusion, and last from a week to years.
“It took me a while to realize it was a disability,” McCray said. “According to the old school definition that if someone looks at me and can’t see a disability, I shouldn’t dare claim the term, because there are people who are judged on a daily basis because they can’t hide their disability.”
McCray’s journey is emblematic of an important shift, said Ariel Simms, president and CEO of RespectAbility, a nonpartisan disability advocacy group.
“No one would have wanted COVID, certainly, but it has brought greater awareness to disability issues in the workplace, as well as mental health and chronic conditions.”
WELCOME TO SHOW-BIZ
For Tameka Citchen-Spruce, an entertainment industry that once required her to travel thousands of miles for professional development arrived at her Detroit door in early 2020.
As COVID cases rise, Citchen-Spruce, 39, a filmmaker and community health advocate who has used a wheelchair since childhood, has turned to marketing her documentary viewings online rather than staging cumbersome viewings in person. Her documentary, “My Girl Story,” earned numerous official selections at film festivals.
Remote and hybrid work also allowed Citchen-Spruce to sidestep misconceptions about her ability to navigate sets and work in the field.
“If you wanted to get into the industry in the past, you had to go there in person [Los Angeles] or New York,” Citchen-Spruce said. “A lot of networking opportunities started coming online during the pandemic. I participated in an entertainment fellowship initially in Los Angeles, but then it opened nationwide.
HOW LONG WILL IT LAST?
Some recent data shows that momentum for job growth for disabled workers is fading, and some economists and policy experts say that people with disabilities seeking work may face a different outlook in 2024.
First, a report from Resume Builder showed that 90% of companies plan to implement return-to-office policies by the end of 2024, which could resurrect a pre-COVID barrier for many.
To keep people with disabilities employed, Stacy Cervenka, senior policy director at RespectAbility, said the federal government and state agencies should act as model employers and establish workplace guidelines that include remote work.
Some disabled job seekers, like Trieshmann who is now seeking a position as an attorney after completing the ACLU fellowship in December, say they are starting to feel the ripple effects of the RTO. After receiving an initial job offer last year and traveling to meet interviewers in the office, Trieshmann said the position was rescinded.
“People were asking inappropriate questions, questioning my basic abilities for my job because of my disability, even though my disability is the entire reason I became a lawyer and what motivates me to show up and do this job,” Trieshmann said.
Trieshmann, who is immunocompromised, has turned down other job offers and has narrowed his job search to workplaces with a majority of people with disabilities, hoping that a more inclusive workplace will encourage workers to stay home when sick, wear masks and to maintain remote work and other work-suspension policies. the pandemic.
At RespectAbility, Simms is concerned about the outlook.
“I think we are reaching a turning point. For much of the world, the pandemic is behind us. And so remote work is behind us,” she said.