Enhancing construction sector employment opportunities for people with disability

Now, a collaborative research project led by academics from the UTS Disability Research Network is seeking to challenge the status quo. By identifying the barriers and enablers to employment for people with disability, the research team is hoping to drive more equitable outcomes for jobseekers and construction companies alike.

“The industry has a strongly normalised and highly conventional view of an ideal construction industry employee – that is, able-bodied and male. People with disability make up only eight per cent of the construction workforce,” – Professor Martin Loosemore

“The narrow networks from which people are recruited into the construction industry and the negative stereotypes of people who do not fit industry norms perpetuate this lack of workforce diversity.

“Our research will address these entrenched negative attitudes towards people with disability, helping people with disabilities to secure and maintain a meaningful career in construction while addressing a major skills crisis in one of our largest industries.”

A two-part project

The project, which was partially funded by a UTS Social Impact Grant, is led by Professor Loosemore, Professor Shankar Sankaran and Associate Professor Phillippa Carnemolla from the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, and Professor Simon Darcy from the UTS Business School. All four academics are members of the UTS Disability Research Network.

Area of expertise
Human society

UTS Social Impact Framework Domain
Domain 2. Student agency

Sustainable Development Goal
Good health and wellbeing

The research was comprised of two parts: a scoping literature review and a data collection exercise in which postgraduate Project Management students roleplayed various construction industry stakeholders, providing the research team with a better understanding of industry perceptions of disability.

“The findings from the literature review were used to develop a case study to expose students to the issues,” says Professor Sankaran, who is internationally acclaimed for his project management research.

“In their lives outside UTS, many of the students are practitioners in some of the roles that they represented, which meant they could provide an authentic, rich picture of the perspectives we sought to understand.”

Establishing the evidence base

The research revealed the most common barriers to construction sector employment for this demographic, which include stigma and discrimination, concerns around equality and fairness of workplaces and systems, non-disclosure of a person’s disability, and a general lack of awareness of disability, which leads many employers to misunderstand the different ways in which people with disability can contribute to the workforce. 

“One of the biggest barriers is the combination of attitudes and behaviours towards people with disability that employers perceive to be a homogenous group,” – Professor Simon Darcy

“While many construction industry employers may only think of manual labour or on-site trade positions, which some people with hearing impairment, psychosocial or intellectual/learning disabilities are already working in, many other people with disability are highly skilled in areas like finance, accounting, the law, economics and architecture that offer value to the industry.”

The project also identified a series of enablers that could lead to better employment opportunities for people with disability. These include creating early intervention, education and training frameworks aimed at changing attitudes towards disability; developing targeted marketing campaigns for specific employers; identifying alternative or different work options for people with disability; and adapting government programs, systems and legislation to overcome existing barriers.

Towards inclusivity

These findings make an important contribution to the evidence base in a largely under-researched field in Australia. And they come at an important time: the Australian Construction Association has previously identified industry culture as a key challenge hampering efforts to increase diversity within the sector and has recently established a taskforce to address the issue. Simultaneously, there’s growing demand for a national workforce strategy for Australians with disability, who earn significantly less than able bodied people and are twice as likely to be unemployed.

As such, the potential impacts of the work are vast – not only could this research lead to enhanced employment opportunities for people with disability and policy changes to support them (one NSW Government agency has already expressed interest in using the research findings to review existing workplace development strategies) but it also opens the door to an untapped talent pool that the construction sector has previously overlooked.

In a landscape where national workforce shortages are putting billions of dollars of public infrastructure projects at risk, the time to act is now.