Deaf and hard of hearing people are more likely to be unemployed than non-disabled people. This can be due to people not receiving the communication support they need for interviews, employers not making the appropriate adjustments to the workplace and other forms of discrimination. Those people who are in employment often face unnecessary barriers that stop them developing their careers. This is not acceptable and could be avoided. Simple, cost effective and practical measures would eliminate many of these problems.

What we have done so far

We work with employers' groups, helping to make sure policies and work environments enable deaf and hard of hearing people to work to the best of their ability. We lobby the government to increase provision for schemes which support deaf and hard of hearing people into employment, such as Access to Work.

In November 2006, we published a campaign report called Opportunity Blocked (PDF 204KB), which explains the results of a survey and focus groups with deaf and hard of hearing people.

The report describes deaf and hard of hearing people's experiences of applying for a job, their experience of the workplace, of applying for and dealing with the Access to Work scheme and services provided by Job Centre Plus.

Get involved

Government has made significant progress in supporting disabled people into work and has a positive agenda of assisting more. In particular, the Access to Work scheme covers the additional costs of employing a disabled person. However many deaf and hard of hearing people are not benefitting from this scheme and many employers remain unaware of it.

Let us know if you have benefitted from Access to Work. Perhaps you would not be able to do your job effectively without this support. Perhaps it makes the difference between you being employed or unemployed. Your story can help us show Government how vital the scheme is for deaf and hard of hearing people. Email your story to campaigns@rnid.org.uk