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Patterns of EmploymentThe first thing to realise is that the pattern of employment opportunity in the population is changing. By the time the school leavers of today are in mid-career, there will be a considerable decline in the number of people who are earning money from full-time employment. This is going to occur because the population of young people is also declining; so fewer people will be joining the workforce. This will mean that there will be more jobs for people like deaf people. However, it will be important to obtain qualifications For Britain at the present time we can see the type of jobs which disabled people get - the figures for deaf people are not as good because more deaf people are in the lower areas of society. (We will see this in later tables.) The problem for deaf people is that there has also been a change in the pattern of employment. We can see this even in the figures which I have for the comparison between 1971 and 1980. If we take a longer perspective say from 1950 to 1990 we will find these differences more marked. Table 1: Hearing People(% of working people) In 1987, there were 11.9% of the workforce out of work. Of these, 34% were under 25 years old, 12% were over the age of 55 years and the rest were between 25 and 55 years old(54%). What these figures show is that there will be a serious problem. As older people with skills move out of the workforce because they retire there will be a shortage of young people with experience who can take their places. Because of high unemployment there will be serious difficulties. However, this should be a good thing for deaf people as they will be more in demand - except that their traditional areas of work are showing a decline. Deaf people will have to become qualified if they are to exploit these labour force changes. They will have to move upwards in the market. |
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