Fedweek

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The percentages of persons with disabilities and those with “targeted” disabilities have increased in recent years although agencies have fallen short of a hiring goal set in 2017 and the picture is complicated by the growing percentages of federal employees and job applicants who decline to disclose whether they have a disability, the EEOC has said.

It said that the percentage of people with disabilities rose from 8.68 percent in 2014 to 9.42 percent in 2018, while the percentage of those with targeted disabilities—certain more severe conditions for which the government has a special emphasis on recruiting, hiring and retention—rose from 1.02 to 1.69 percent. However, in that time the percentage of those who did not identify having a disability or not rose from 2.89 to 5.49 percent.

In terms of hiring, EEOC noted that rules it issued in 2017 instructed agencies to set a goal that persons with disabilities constitute 12 percent of all new hires and those with targeted disabilities 2 percent. Hiring in the former category was just above 11 percent in both 2017 and 2018, while in the latter it was about 1.4 and 2.4 percent in those two years.

The report also showed that persons with disabilities:

* are promoted at a rate similar to what would be expected based on their governmentwide participation rate but are underrepresented in leadership positions, about 11 percent vs. about 16 percent;
* are more likely to be veterans, male and older than non-veterans, women and younger employees;
* express more negative viewpoints than persons without disabilities on topics related to performance appraisals, promotions, and employment discrimination in the annual government-wide employee survey; and
* have slightly higher rates of voluntary turnover than others.

The report said there could be valid reasons for the higher turnover since persons with disabilities tend to be older on average and therefore more likely to be retirement-eligible. However, it said that agencies still should explore ways to boost retention “such as improving their workplace climates, reasonable accommodation programs, and personal assistance services.”

Other best practices overall, it said, include improving reasonable accommodation request processes; involving employees in improvements to facilities, technology and accessibility; encouraging employees to disclose their disability status; expanded outreach in recruitment; and identify policies or practices that may be contributing to higher turnover.

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