In 1997-98 open employment services assisted over 31,000 people
with disabilities in their efforts to find and maintain jobs on the
open labour market, a 20% increase from 1996-97. This followed a
similar increase the previous year. Open employment services are
funded by the Commonwealth Government.
Open Employment Services for People with Disabilities
1997-98, to be released by the Australian Institute of Health
and Welfare on Thursday, shows that just over half the clients who
received open employment support in 1997-98 had at least one job
during that year. While the jobs were spread across industry
sectors, the two leading employment sectors over the past three
years were retail trade and manufacturing.
One of the report's authors, Dr Phil Anderson, said that
two-thirds of all jobs were permanent and regular. 'Jobs varied
from casual work for a few hours to full-time jobs for the whole
year. We found that on average open employment services' clients
with a job worked for 32 weeks of the year, and the mean number of
hours worked per week was 24-this is a slight drop over the
previous two years.'
'Award wages were received for 80% of all jobs, with an average
wage of $235 per week.'
Open Employment Services for People with Disabilities
1997-98 also shows:
- Clients who obtained a job received an average of 76 hours of
personal support from an open employment agency over the year, and
most support was received around the time of getting a job.
- Clients had a range of disabilities-the largest group (44%) was
people with an intellectual/learning disability as their main
disability, followed by people with a psychiatric disability (24%),
and people with a physical disability (15%).
- The proportion of people with an intellectual/learning
disability has fallen (from 52% to 44%) since 1995-96, while that
for people with a psychiatric disability has increased (from 20% to
24%).
- Two-thirds of the clients were male, and the age distribution
was similar for males and females.
30 September 1999
Further information: Dr Phil Anderson, ph. 02
6244 1125.
For media copies of the report: Publications
Officer, ph. 02 6244 1032.
Availability: Check the AIHW Publications
Catalogue for details.