Luke Henriques-Gomes, social affairs and inequality editor

YouGov poll indicates nearly one in 10 HR professionals were not open to recruiting a person with disability in the future.

Half of Australian managers and human resources professionals say their organisation has never hired a person with disability and nearly one in 10 admit they wouldn’t want to in the future, according to a new survey.

The YouGov survey of 501 Australian middle managers and HR professionals also found dissatisfaction with the $1bn-a-year disability employment services program (Des), which pays private providers to place jobseekers into work.

The survey, commissioned by the social enterprise Jigsaw, comes as the Albanese government urges businesses ahead of its upcoming jobs summit to employ people with disability to meet labour force shortages.

The survey found 50% of Australian managers/HR professionals said they or their business have never hired or worked with a person with disability.

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Read the full article here on The Guardian website, or click below to read a PDF.

Laura O’Reilly, co-founder of the Fighting Chance Group and Hireup, gave the keynote speech at Tuesday’s Australian Disability Service Conference in Sydney, speaking about how we must rethink the traditional models of disability services, in order to create true, unbridled opportunity for people with disability.

“For me, innovation and social entrepreneurship are concepts about which I am deeply passionate, and I believe that the future of our sector lies in rethinking the traditional approaches I saw under-serve my brother. And while there are undoubtedly pockets of interesting innovation across the disability service landscape, my experience has been that this is not the norm. I think that at this stage in the rollout of the NDIS, it should be,” Laura said.

So what is it that we need to do to invite more creativity and innovation into the disability sector and rethink traditional service models?

Read more of Laura’s speech by clicking on the link below:

Laura and Jordan O’Reilly, founders of Fighting Chance and Hireup, share their experiences of growing up with a brother with disability, and the journey they’ve gone on to lead one of Australia’s fastest growing companies within the disability sector.