Dr Rachel Moseley, principal academic in Psychology at Bournemouth University – updated written evidence (YDP0006)

I am Dr Rachel Moseley, principal academic in Psychology at Bournemouth University. I am autistic, and my research focuses on wellbeing, mental health and suicidality in autistic people, in which employment is a major factor.

My evidence will focus on this demographic as one particularly disadvantaged among disabled groups.

Why should autistic people be an especial concern?

At any qualification level, autistic graduates are the least likely of any disability group to be in full-time employment 15 months after graduation (Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, 2021).
They have the lowest rates of employment among disabled people: 29.9% of disabled people on the autism spectrum were in employment in 2021/22, compared to 54.3% of all disabled people and 81.1% of non-disabled people (Office of National Statistics, 2021).
If employed, they are less likely to hold any kind of supervisory role in employment than any other disabled group, with only 13.2% having a role involving some kind of supervisory responsibility (Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, 2021). Moreover, they earn on average 33.5% less than non-disabled people – a bigger pay gap than in any other disabled group (Office of National Statistics, 2021).
They are at higher risk of suicide from adolescence (Hedley et al., 2022), with suicide risk almost 2 and a half times higher in autistic people who are unemployed vs. those who are employed (Kolves et al., 2021).

See next pages for my responses to questions.

1) What barriers do young disabled people face when leaving education and entering the job market and workplace?

Autism stigma and employer reluctance to hire autistic people

Public narratives about autism are deficit-focused, rather than strengths focused (Johnson, 2022). As a likely consequence, employers are reluctant to hire autistic people because:

they believe it will be costly in terms of necessary adaptations, resources, and support needed from other staff (Nicholas et al., 2019)
they have lower expectations of their capability to fulfil job roles (Nicholas et al., 2019)
they believe that autistic people will negatively affect others in the workplace (Albright et al., 2020)
they are uncertain about performance management of the individual once in the role (Wen et al., 2022)

Recruitment processes which are inaccessible

Job interviews disadvantage autistic people in several ways (Davies et al., 2023; Finn et al., 2023):

They involve complex social interaction and rapport-building, with specific but not explicitly spoken expectations;
They involve spontaneity and ‘thinking on your feet’, when individuals will be highly anxious (Anderson et al., 2020);
Because of subtle non-verbal and verbal differences in behaviour, non-autistic people often feel a sense of unease and liking the person less, even though they might not be able to explain why (Clin & Kissine, 2023; Alkhaldi et al., 2021). Employers judge autistic people more negatively if they hear and see someone answer a question, vs. if they read a transcript of the same response (Whelpley & May, 2023).
Employers only follow requests for reasonable adjustments in the application process in 16% of cases (Ambitious about Autism, 2022)

The ‘gap’ between support services

Ambitious about Autism (2022) point out that young people fall through the cracks where their EHC plan ends, when they leave education and look for work, meaning that DWP then have to implement schemes to get people ‘back to work’. The information already collated in an EHC plan is simply not carried further and utilised in employment and health support plans. (see suggested improvement, question 4)

Employment support services (e.g. Jobcentre Plus) are poorly equipped to support autistic people.

Autistic people rated the autism understanding of Jobcentre Plus staff as among the worst of any professionals they encounter (National Autistic Society, 2021), with many reporting highly distressing and invalidating encounters.

Ambitious about Autism (2022) report that 43% of autistic young people felt poorly understood by careers advisors, with some finding that they were being guided into roles they were overqualified for.

Lower educational attainment and less work experience

On average, autistic people are less likely to finish compulsory education, and if they do, leave with lower qualifications (Toft et al., 2021; Keen et al., 2021). Ambitious about Autism (2022) suggest that only 20% of autistic youth (vs. 52% of non-autistic youth) achieve grade 5 or above in their English and Maths GCSEs.

Autistic people are also less likely to successfully complete higher education, and often have to contend with systemic barriers as well as low expectations held by staff (MacLeod et al., 2017; Morina et al. 2022). Moreover, there is a lack of work experience opportunities for autistic people (Crane et al., 2021a).

Internal barriers

Lack of confidence: many autistic people have very low self-worth and believe that they are unemployable (Nagib and Wilton, 2020).
Emotions: autistic people who graduate from University often feel highly fearful and unequipped to succeed in the workplace, and moreover to cope with life changes and independence (Lucas et al., 2022). Emotional support is needed, but rarely received.
Fear of discrimination and inaccessibility: sadly, autistic students expect to encounter discrimination and social challenges in the workplace (Cheriyan et al. 2021), such that over 70% choose not to disclose at interview (Ambitious about Autism, 2022). Ambitious about Autism (2022) report that anxiety about the interview and application process is the biggest barrier to young people finding work.
Mental health problems: these are widespread in this group.

Difficulties sustaining employment

Sustaining employment is difficult because of stigma and discrimination within the workplace. For instance, employers see social challenges of autistic people in the workplace as a reflection of their autism rather than considering the behaviour of other staff or contextual workplace factors, like lack of support (Bury et al., 2021). Negative interactions with colleagues, lack of understanding and acceptance are harmful to mental health and ultimately make the placement unsustainable (Waisman-Nitzan et al., 2020; Hogstedt et al., 2022).

Societal prejudice about autism and disability more broadly means that many are scared to disclose, and some are penalised when they do (Vincent et al., 2019; Romualdez et al., 2021).

Those who do disclose and ask for reasonable adjustments do not always receive them (Davies et al. 2022). The onus is on autistic people to suggest their own reasonable adjustments to employers (Davies et al., 2021), and many struggle to identify their own needs/difficulties, resulting in adequate adjustments.

2) How far do barriers to young disabled people accessing other public services, such as health and care services, present a barrier to young disabled people accessing the workplace?

In relation to autistic people, difficulties accessing health and care services are likely to have long-term impact on obtaining and sustaining employment.

For instance, the difficulties that they face during formal education – insufficient support and accommodations in mainstream schools, bullying and social exclusion – often result in low self-confidence, low self-worth, and high prevalence of mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. Difficulties accessing support during these years will also affect the individual’s academic attainment and hence their opportunities for employment.

Research tells us that non-autistic people hold prejudices about autistic people from early in life (Aube et al., 2020). Moreover, autistic people are acutely aware of being stereotyped, victimised and discriminated against across multiple settings, including by professionals (Han et al. 2022; Jones et al., 2022). This too will adversely affect mental health, self-worth, and also fear of being excluded or victimised in employment contexts.

3) We have not focused this inquiry specifically on the experiences of young people with an Education, Health, and Care plan when they leave education and enter employment. …

What other focused approaches could the inquiry take?

I advise against excluding experiences of individuals without an EHC plan. The EHC plan system is underfunded and hence inadequately executed – not everyone who needs an EHC plan gets one in a timely fashion, and some EHC plans are of limited help or value to young people and their families (Crane et al., 2021a; Crane et al., 2021b; Ambitious about Autism, 2022). Moreover, given that the waiting list for autism diagnoses is unacceptably long (National Autistic Society, 2023), many disabled young people will not be receiving any kind of support. Ambitious about Autism (2022) point out a number of problems with the present system and government propositions for change, while suggesting alternatives.

I recommend the committee consider impacts of intersectionality in disabled people:

Sex and gender: autistic girls and women can be disadvantaged in the employment sphere (Hayward et al., 2018, 2020), and are often diagnosed later, which means they receive less support and have poorer mental health (Martini et al. 2022).
Race and ethnicity: neurodivergent people of colour are also disadvantaged in workplace and recruitment settings (Raymaker et al., 2021). They also have less access to educational opportunities (Cameron & Greenland, 2021; Koffer Miller et al. 2023), diagnosis and support (Diemer et al., 2022). Impacts on educational attainment and health (mental and otherwise) will likewise affect their later employment prospects and opportunities.

4) How effectively do education systems provide careers advice, guidance and support …

5) Do staff in schools and other education settings providing careers guidance and advice have the appropriate training and resources to support the needs and aspirations of young disabled people?

As far as autism is concerned, education systems lack funding, resources and infrastructure to support young people into work, to the frustration of teachers and families alike (Crane et al., 2021a; Crane et al. 2021b; Ambitious about Autism, 2022).

Research highlights post-16 support at mainstream secondary as especially poor. Crane et al. (2022) interviewed 80 autistic young people, just over half of whom had received little or no support in deciding what to do post-secondary education. Where support was given in mainstream education, it was often interrupted by staff changes, and inaccessible due to low staff-to-student ratio, lack of awareness and appropriate reasonable adjustments. This left autistic young people feeling helpless, distressed and disenfranchised with the process.

Employment support was generally rated higher in specialist education, but autistic young people recognised that the slashed budget for specialist education had affected opportunities and support available for them.

Multiple recent studies suggest that parents must take on the role of “care coordinators and life-supporters” (Spiers, 2015; see also McMinn et al., 2019; Crane et al., 2022; Crompton and Bond, 2022). Because of insufficient support within educational systems, parents are forced to search for publicly-funded support outside of school (“a post-code lottery”), find private support, or carry the full responsibility of supporting their children, often to the detriment of their own well-being. Parents also often have to take on the role of intermediaries between young people and career-support professionals, since the information provided was delivered in a way that the young person couldn’t take on board (Crompton and Bond, 2022).

Post-19 career support was rated slightly more positively by autistic young people (Crane et al., 2022), but in Universities, many autistic young people still do not feel well-supported when it comes to obtaining employment (Lucas et al., 2022). They suggest that Careers Services in Universities do not always have sufficient understanding of autism to understand their needs (Vincent, 2019). Autistic students can be anxious of being judged negatively in relation to their CVs, and can struggle to be self-directed in accessing this support (Pesonan et al., 2021).

Suggestions for improvement based on research involving autistic young people and their families:

Career support should adopt a strengths-based approach (focusing on the person’s talents and skills, matching these to suitable employment roles), rather than an approach which tries to ameliorate “problems” related to autism. A number of studies show that identification of strengths and person-job match are crucial for job success (Cheriyan et al., 2021)

Mainstream settings assume and value linear academic progression, including in transition support. This is alienating for some autistic people, since these services don’t take into account their own interests, or mental health needs and life skills (Crompton and Bond, 2022). Less traditional routes into employment have been emphasised as important for autistic people – these might focus on developing interests and hobbies to a high level, connecting them with people in positions of influence, etc (Raymaker et al., 2022). This links back to strengths-based approaches (see below examples).

Provide “life skills training” that is practical (Crane et al., 2022) and goes beyond simply employment to include independence skills (e.g. finances, transport) which are necessary to KEEP them in work (Crompton and Bond, 2022).

Ensure transition support occurs within the context of safe relationships, with continuity, and is individualised to the person (Crompton and Bond, 2022).

Ensure EHC plans are kept up to date, agreed with the individual, and continue into higher education (Crane et al., 2022). Ambitious about Autism (2022) suggest that when leaving formal education, EHC plans should “evolve” to become Employment, Health and Care Plans – allowing these to be updated rather than losing previously collected EHC information.

Understanding of autism (as well as knowing the young person as a person) is vitally important (Crompton and Bond, 2022). In mainstream schools, autism understanding training should be improved.

Within University courses, career-focused practical activities (e.g. practicing interviews, writing a CV) may be helpful (Pesonan et al., 2021).

Careers Services (University) should provide individualised emotional support (e.g. coaching) rather than general guidance. They may also need to provide more practical support with job-finding (Pesonan et al., 2021).

Careers Services (University) should be more proactive in reaching out to neurodivergent students (Pesonan et al., 2021).

Work experience or internships are highly valued by autistic people in terms of building skills and confidence (Lai et al., 2019; Cheriyan et al., 2021), but neurodivergent students can really struggle to benefit unless individualised support is provided (Pesonan et al., 2021).

Examples of good practice:

A strengths-based programme for adolescents leads to improvements in confidence, self-esteem, community participation and social relationships, and mental health, as rated by parents and young people (Lee et al., 2020, 2023).

For older autistic students, job coaching (/employment counselling) is critical in building self-worth, confidence, employment skills, and finding suitable person-job matches – and improves likelihood of obtaining employment (Cameron et al., 2021). See, for instance, this Swedish programme, supported by autism expert Professor Sven Bolte. Part of job coaching should be assessing workplace strengths and difficulties and considering possible adjustments – giving autistic people a ‘passport’ they could give to employers (also suggested by Ambitious about Autism, 2022).

This must be a reiterative/continuous process – the individual will likely encounter specific or different difficulties in specific workplaces, such that the passport would need to be adapted with discussion between the individual and their employment coach, and the individual and their employer.

Note that Professor Bolte suggests that research might be useful in developing a standardised tool to guide conversations between autistic individuals and employment counsellors/job coaches – this could highlight possible difficulties and possible adaptations that might help.

Supported work experience programmes, like that run by Ambitious about Autism. See more here.

11) What could public services employers learn from best practice elsewhere, including overseas, about recruiting and retaining young disabled people? What are the barriers to implementing such good practice?

There are many online sources of advice and support for employers who wish to become more inclusive in recruitment:

the National Autistic Society, who also have this page on interviews
Autistica’s Hire Different campaign
Employment Autism

To retain employees:

Neurodiversity Media’s content on adaptations to avoid autistic burnout and support remote work; ;

To improve recruitment, autistic people suggest (Davies et al., 2023; Finn et al., 2023):

Reduce the focus on social skills (knowing how to ‘perform’ in interview). Instead, assess competence to perform tasks – use practical recruitment methods.
Be very careful of using psychometric tests, which likewise test a person’s ability to guess what the employer is looking for and ‘perform’ appropriately. Note that many psychometric tests were designed for neurotypical people and so they might systematically disadvantage autistic people when applied to them.
Allow scope for tailoring recruitment processes to needs – there cannot be a one-size fits all approach.
Train employers and all involved in recruitment to be aware of unconscious biases and to better understand autism and autistic features.
Job specifications should be more precise rather than naming vague, generic skills.
Reduce unpredictability and the “unknowns” (which add anxiety and cognitive burden) – consider providing photos of the interview room, names and photos of the interviewers, length and basic content of interview and/or tests.
Provide interview questions in advance and avoid ambiguous questions which require reading between the lines.
Be sensitive to sensory needs and the likelihood of anxiety – simply being kind helps. Realise that anxiety is a massive issue for autistic people and they may have had little sleep for days beforehand.
Realise that the more people present, the more social monitoring (trying to read multiple people) the autistic person needs to do.
Give feedback to unsuccessful job applicants.

Examples of good practice in recruitment and retention:

Flowers et al. (2020): Rather than interviews, use practical recruitment strategies like work trials, set over extended periods (days to weeks), which should ideally incorporate vocational support (learning about the culture of the organisation).
Microsoft, see here too

Note that public service roles may not be intuitively appealing to autistic people as there is an assumption that these roles will be public-facing. In general, roles which involve social imagination (understanding the feelings and thoughts of others, and potential social consequences of own and others’ actions – e.g. if I do x, what might the repercussions be in terms of what others think, feel and do?), will be challenging for autistic people, and they are less likely to gravitate towards them, or may struggle if they do end up there.

15) How effectively are the rights of disabled people upheld and enforced in the workplace?

For autistic people, these rights are often poorly upheld. Autistic people are disadvantaged from the start with regards typical recruitment processes (Davies et al., 2023).

Moreover, there are there are often social and organisational barriers to implementing reasonable adjustments within employment (e.g. Davies et al., 2022; Romualdez et al., 2021), such that in reality, the 2010 Equality Act is often not adhered to. Two out of three autistic adults experience negative consequences of disclosing their autism to employers (Romualdez et al. 2021); many report losing jobs as a result of disclosing their autism (Jones et al., 2022).

In general, in relation to actions the Government should take to support autistic young people into employment:

Incentivise employers to qualify as “autism-friendly” (National Autistic Society). This should be implemented all levels of the organisation, from employees to managers.

Why?

Autism acceptance has been voted as the most important workplace accommodation by autistic adults (Petty et al., 2023). For autistic people to sustain employment, their workplaces must be psychologically safe places to be autistic without stigma or discrimination. Sustaining employment is dependent on good relationships between autistic people and their supervisors, line managers, and peers (Martin et al., 2023; Hayward et al., 2019; Johnson et al., 2020).

How – what changes can make a workplace more autism-friendly?

 Autism acceptance training should be strengths based and neurodiversity-affirming, co-created by autistic people, and should, as far as possible, bring non-autistic people into contact (virtually, if not in person) with autistic people (Petty et al., 2023).

 Autism acceptance training should emphasise implicit (unconscious) biases that make non-autistic people rate autistic people less favourably:

- If employers are aware that an autistic person’s social behaviour might differ in interview, they judge them more positively (Comer et al., 2023).

- Making people aware of their biases can help reduce them (Jones et al., 2021), and autism acceptance training can improve interactions between non-autistic and autistic people (Jones et al., 2023).

 Training for employers should include training on management style, and guidance for in-job mentoring. Researchers suggest that managers need to a) cater their management technique to autistic employees rather than treating everyone the same, and b) not lower their expectations that autistic employees can excel, if placed in the appropriate role and adequately supported and accommodated – be “understanding challengers” who take time to understand autistic employees needs, while recognising they have the same potential to excel if suitably supported and accommodating (see Whelpley and Woznyj, 2023; Whelpley et al., 2021).

However, to make employment obtainable and sustainable for autistic people, there needs to be cultural change from the bottom-up.

Training programmes such as the above may improve recruitment and employment conditions for those who are known to be autistic (i.e. who disclose their diagnosis). However, they will not necessarily improve anything for the 1-2% of the population who are undiagnosed autistics (O’Nions et al., 2023) – note that diagnostic waiting lists for adults are overwhelmingly stretched, with people waiting years to be seen (National Autistic Society, 2023).

Undiagnosed autistic people will have grown up with the same kinds of victimisation as autistic people, but may have had more pejorative labels attached to them (e.g. ‘weird’, ‘stupid’) (Gellini & Marczak, 2023). They will be subject to the same unconscious biases which make non-autistic people simply like autistic people less. They will struggle chronically with employment and poor health, and thus, alongside diagnosed autistics, contribute in a large part to the strain on these services. However, they will not benefit from employers (and employees) simply being trained to treat autistic people more kindly when they know they are autistic.

A wider cultural shift is needed in order to make workplaces psychologically safe places to be autistic, whether or not the person is yet diagnosed. This is the only way that people can sustain work if they obtain it. This kind of cultural shift in the ways people think about difference and disability, attributing equal value and respect for different ways of being, needs to be embedded in education from early childhood. We can achieve something by training employers and employees now, but creating the most inclusive work culture requires producing future-employers and employees who grow up with inclusive mindsets.

This wider cultural change will also help reduce the problem of autistic people being too frightened to disclose their diagnosis at work because of the very real discrimination against autistic people (Romualdez et al. 2021; Jones et al., 2022).

This camouflaging (trying to hide one’s autism and “pass as normal”) is directly associated with burnout and suicidality (Arnold et al., 2023; Mantzalas et al., 2023). A cultural change is needed to make it safe to be autistic throughout public spaces.

8 August 2023