What research it has undertaken in response to reports that fewer disabled people are accessing employment opportunities in Scotland, compa…

The Scottish Government routinely publishes official labour market statistics for disabled people and analysis of how their labour market barriers and outcomes are changing over time.
We know the disability employment gap
- the difference between the employment rates of disabled and non-disabled people
- narrowed over the latest year to July 2020 – June 2021 by 1.5 percentage points in Scotland, to 32.0 percentage points. This was a larger narrowing of the disability employment gap than in the UK, where it narrowed by 0.6 percentage points. Scotland’s disability employment gap was also smaller than the disability employment gap in both Wales and Northern Ireland in the latest year.
We remain on course to reach our ambition to at least halve the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038, however, we know there is much more work to do. For example, we continue to work closely with our partners in Disabled People’s Organisations to hear directly from disabled people themselves what changes they are experiencing in the labour market. This includes their representation on our Short Life Working Group for the refresh of our employment action plan, ensuring disabled people’s lived experiences are shaping this work.
Latest data and analysis are published at:
Labour market monthly briefing: November 2021
- gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
Fairer Scotland for disabled people
- employment action plan: progress report
- year 2
- gov.scot (www.gov.scot)