Challenges Faced By Deaf Individuals In Securing Employment

This is to enlighten employers on how to accommodate deaf individuals and for deaf people to locate jobs, respectively.

Deaf people often faced many challenges in finding jobs. Reasons can include discriminatory hiring process, misconceptions, and employment barriers, all made by the employers. There are three other reasons for deaf individuals’ struggles in securing gainful employment that is infrequently discussed by others:

1. Poor educational preparation

2. Lack of reasonable accommodations

3. Not enough deaf-friendly organizations and businesses

Poor educational preparation

Some deaf individuals had poor academic preparation growing up which are at no fault of their own. Some do not have access to sign language interpreters at schools or have the opportunity to be taught by teachers who sign fluently. Many parents do not even sign despite having deaf children which left the children seriously language deprived during their formative years. In result, some deaf children grew up struggling with their academics and are unprepared for competitive employment. Too many hearing people get hired over deaf people, even for deaf-related jobs because hearing people have better academic preparation, have more credentials or degrees, and have more job experience. Employers would justify this by saying that they hired the most qualified person for the job without giving deaf people the chance to prove that they are also capable of the job.

Lack of reasonable accommodations

Very few employers know how to accommodate individuals with hearing loss. Some refuse to provide reasonable accommodations even for job interviews or training. Here are some common examples of inexpensive accommodations for deaf job candidates:

i. Provide sign language interpreters or another kind of accommodation that best suit the deaf candidates;

ii. Provide the interview questions in print and allow deaf candidates more time to review them before answering;

iii. Provide visual aids to deaf candidates, particularly for job training rather than relying on everything verbal.

Not enough deaf-friendly organizations and businesses

There are only a handful of deaf organizations or deaf-friendly businesses in the areas where deaf people live, particularly in larger cities. Job opportunities for deaf people can be few and far between even at deaf organizations or deaf-friendly businesses. Some deaf people may not know about the job vacancies or have a hard time finding them which can be a missed opportunity for them to apply for jobs that they are qualified for. An online job board that regularly post deaf employment opportunities can help deaf people to look for jobs that match to their skills and job experience.

In closing, while there are many reasons why deaf people have challenges in obtaining jobs as cited in various research elsewhere; poor educational preparation, lack of reasonable accommodations, and not enough deaf-friendly organizations and businesses in the area that employ deaf people are three areas that are often overlooked which must be brought to light, and to overcome.