COLUMBUS, Ohio — Barriers have kept a large portion of people with disabilities out of the workforce. Understanding those factors is why JPMorgan Chase commissioned a new study with the National Disabilities Institute.
It’s an initiative JPMorgan Chase, only during has focused on since 2016 with the Office of Disability Inclusion.
“Initially, we had a focus on employees, so employees with disabilities at JPMorgan Chase and doing what we needed to do to make the workplace inclusive for those employees,” said Executive Director Elizabeth Daly-Torres. “Recently, we have started expanding our scope to focus on the marketplace of people with disabilities. And, also from the beginning, been work on the corporate responsibility side, we have some very, very important relationships with nonprofits that support and give us information about the disability community.”
The study, published in July, highlights that 62.5% of work-age-related people with disabilities are not working.
“When you look at talent, we need to look at the entire spectrum of talent. So we're talking about employees, we need to look at the entire spectrum of talent. And that includes people who may not have historically been included in the way they can be included in the workplace. And that includes our work on the outside as well,” said Daly-Torres.
People with disabilities have leaned toward entrepreneurship. The NDI study shows that 1.8 million business owners in the country have a disability.
“It really focuses on individuals with disabilities who are entrepreneurs or small business owners,” said Daly-Torres. “First of all, just understand the landscape. How many people are there? What are people doing? What does that landscape look like? And then more importantly, what are the challenges, the opportunities, and what are the recommendations that not only we could act as JPMorgan Chase, but what are the recommendations that could perhaps change the landscape across the entire United States for people with disabilities who are entrepreneurs?”