Labour market characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, 2023
Released: 2024-06-13
In recent years, new policies and legislation, such as the Accessible Canada Act and the Canada Disability Benefit Act, have been adopted to improve the accessibility of employment and the financial security of working-age persons with a disability.
According to the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD), 27.0% of Canadians aged 15 and over, or 8.0 million people, had one or more disabilities, up 4.7 percentage points from 2017. In this context, the accessibility of jobs is an increasingly important component of employment and labour force participation in Canada.
Today, Statistics Canada is releasing a new article titled "Labour market characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, 2023." The article uses data from Labour Force Survey supplements to examine trends in the employment and unemployment rates of persons with and without disabilities in 2023, and explores how disability intersects with age, sex, educational attainment, and racialized groups to influence labour market outcomes.
Employment rate of persons with a disability is little changed in 2023
In 2023, the number of Canadians with a disability who were employed edged up (+1.6%), while their population rose by 1.5% compared with 2022. As a result, the employment rate—the proportion of the population who are employed—held steady at 47.1% among persons with a disability.
On the other hand, growth in the population of Canadians without disabilities (+3.5%) outpaced employment gains (+2.3%), bringing the employment rate of Canadians without disabilities down from 67.7% in 2022 to 66.9% in 2023. The increase in the population without disabilities in 2023 was largely due to international migration. Recent immigrants—who are younger on average than persons born in Canada—are less likely to have a disability.
In 2023, the unemployment rate continued to be higher among persons with a disability (7.6%) compared with people without disabilities (4.6%), though it increased at a similar pace for both groups from 2022 to 2023 (+0.8 percentage points for those with a disability and +0.7 percentage points for those without disabilities).
Labour Force Survey data collection on persons with and without disabilities
Since 2022, information on disability has been collected every month through supplements to the Labour Force Survey. This information enables the production and analysis of annual labour market indicators for persons with and without disabilities, such as the employment, unemployment and labour force participation rates, as well as hourly wages and work hours.
The Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) is the official source of information on the prevalence of persons with disabilities in Canada. Results from the 2022 CSD are now available in The Daily release "Canadian Survey on Disability, 2017 to 2022."
The CSD offers additional measures such as the age of onset of disabilities that can be used to perform more in-depth analysis related to how and when disability occurs.
Less than half of youth with a mental health-related disability are employed
In 2023, the employment rate of youth (aged 15 to 24) with a disability was 51.9%, little changed compared with 2022, and lower than the employment rate of youth without disabilities (57.7%).
According to the CSD, mental health-related disability is the most common type of disability among youth. In 2023, youth with a mental-health disability had an employment rate of 46.7%, 5.2 percentage points below the employment rate for youth with all types of disability combined.
Disability has a larger impact on the employment rates of men
Disability tends to have a larger impact on the employment rates of men, particularly among youth and core-aged workers (aged 25 to 54). In 2023, the overall employment rate for men with a disability (48.9%) was 21.9 percentage points below the rate for men without disabilities (70.8%). In comparison, the employment rate of women with a disability (45.6%) was 17.2 percentage points below the rate of their counterparts without disabilities (62.8%).
Chart 1
Employment rate by severity of disabilities and age group, Canada, 2023
Gap in the employment rate of persons with and without disabilities smaller among those with a university degree
In 2023, the gap between the employment rates of persons with and without disabilities tended to be lower at higher levels of educational attainment. For example, among core-aged persons with at most a high school diploma in 2023, the employment rate for those with a disability was 28.6 percentage points lower than for their counterparts without disabilities. In contrast, among core-aged persons with a bachelor's degree or a higher level of education, the employment rate of persons with a disability was 3.1 percentage points lower than that of their counterparts without disabilities.
This pattern may be due to different factors, including the accessibility of education for persons with certain types of disabilities or with more severe disabilities, as well as the accessibility of jobs for persons with a disability.
Employment rate of those with a disability varies across racialized populations
Among racialized persons with a disability, employment rates in 2023 were above the national average (47.1%) for Filipino (60.4%), Latin American (57.0%) and South Asian (52.2%) Canadians, while they were below the national average for West Asian Canadians (44.1%). The employment rate gap between persons with and without disabilities was 23.2 percentage points among West Asian Canadians, 20.3 percentage points among Filipino Canadians, 18.9 among South Asian Canadians and 15.8 among Latin American Canadians.
In comparison, the employment rate of non-racialized and non-Indigenous people with a disability (46.2%) was 19.6 percentage points lower than the rate for their counterparts without disabilities (65.8%) in 2023.
Chart 2
Employment rate of persons with and without disabilities by racialized group, Canada, 2023
Persons with a disability are less likely to work in professional, scientific and technical services
In 2023, persons with a disability (14.4%) were more likely to be employed in health care and social assistance compared with those without (12.9%). Persons with a disability (6.8%) were also more likely to be employed in public administration than those without disabilities (5.7%). On the other hand, persons with a disability (7.9%) were less likely to work in the relatively high-paying industry of professional, scientific, and technical services than those without disabilities (10.3%).
Alberta records the highest employment rate for persons with a disability in 2023
Among the provinces, the employment rate of persons with a disability was highest in Alberta (52.9%) in 2023. Persons with a disability in Prince Edward Island (50.4%), Saskatchewan (49.4%) and British Columbia (48.9%) also recorded rates above the national average for this group (47.1%). At the same time, persons with a disability in Newfoundland and Labrador (39.0%.) and Nova Scotia (43.8%) had employment rates below the national average. These provincial differences in the employment rates of persons with a disability largely mirrored provincial differences in their overall employment rates.
Did you know we have a mobile app?
Download our mobile app and get timely access to data at your fingertips! The StatsCAN app is available for free on the App Store and on Google Play.
Note to readers
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Canadian Survey on Disability both collect data using the disability screening questions (DSQ), which allows these surveys to identify 11 disability types and their severity. For more information on how the severity of disabilities is derived, please see the report entitled A New Survey Measure of Disability: the Disability Screening Questions (DSQ).
The LFS program includes the LFS as the main questionnaire, as well as supplemental questionnaires on specialized topics each month, asked on a rotating basis. From 2014 to 2021, the DSQ were asked as part of the Canadian Income Survey (CIS), a supplemental survey to the LFS, for a partial period of each year. For the first time in 2022, the LFS program collected 12 months of data using the DSQ, through a combination of the CIS as well as the Labour Market and Socio-economic Indicators supplement.
For more information on the LFS, see the Guide to the Labour Force Survey (71-543-G).
All estimates reflect the situation of the population aged 15 and older residing in the provinces, excluding people living on Indigenous reserves, full-time members of the regular armed forces and people living in institutions.
This analysis focuses on differences between estimates that are statistically significant at the 68% confidence level.
Products
The article "Labour market characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, 2023", is now available online in the Labour Statistics at a Glance series (71-222-X).
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
- Date modified: