Raising the employment rate in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area requires more people with specific work ability to enter the labour market. In this blog, we take a particular look at the labour market situation of people with disabilities, which is closely linked to specific work ability, but is not the same thing exactly. It is important to note that not all people with disabilities have specific work abilities, and improving labour market accessibility requires a broader perspective.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities defines disability as follows: persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.
The labour market situation of people with disabilities is not a marginal issue, but affects a large part of the population. According to the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), there are 511,000 people aged 15–64 with disabilities in Finland, which corresponds to around 15% of this age group. According to a Eurostat survey on income and living conditions, as many as 29% of people aged 16–64 experience limitations in their daily lives due to health problems. From a labour market perspective, this means that a significant proportion of the working age population faces challenges in finding and keeping a job.
Labour market situation of people with disabilities
The European Disability Forum’s report The Right to Work, published in April 2023, reveals significant barriers that people with disabilities face in gaining quality employment in the EU. According to the report, only 51.3% of working age people with disabilities are in paid employment in the EU. According to the report, the employment rate of people with disabilities was 56.9% in Finland, compared to 58.4% in Sweden and 60.1% in Denmark.
The difference in employment rates between disabled and non-disabled people is significant. In 2022, the gap was 19 percentage points in Finland, 25.7 in Sweden and 9.9 in Denmark, the second lowest in the EU right after Luxembourg’s 8.5.
If we look at the employment rate of people with intellectual disabilities, the figures are even lower. In the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, the employment rate for people with intellectual disabilities has been around 10%, while in the rest of Finland it has only been around 3%.
We also know from various studies that people who have been unemployed for a long period of time are also more likely to have diagnosed disabilities or long-term conditions than other unemployed people. In other words, health issues make becoming employed significantly more difficult.
In the light of these figures, it is clear that The Ami Foundation’s goal of building the best labour market in the Nordics cannot be achieved in the Finnish capital region unless the labour market situation improves for people with disabilities who are able to work with their health condition, as long as their working conditions are commensurate with their ability to work.
Structural problems in the labour market
The Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment’s 2020 report highlights a number of structural barriers to the employment of people with disabilities. Some of the main challenges are the attitudes and preconceptions of employers, which can raise the recruitment barrier. For example, employers may consider how the nature of the disability affects job performance and efficiency. Assumptions about sickness absence or the risk of disability retirement of disabled workers can also influence recruitment decisions. In addition, employers may be concerned about how other employees and customers will perceive colleagues with disabilities, which can contribute to uncertainty in the recruitment process.
This finding is also supported by studies. According to a survey by The Finnish Disability Forum, 57% of respondents have experienced discrimination when looking for a job. A survey by Finland’s Non-Discrimination Ombudsman further shows that as many as 67% of jobseekers with disabilities have experienced discrimination during a recruitment process.
Practical discrimination is evidenced, for example, in studies that have found that jobseekers using a wheelchair can receive under half of the job offers compared to those who do not make reference to a disability.
Research shows that these assumptions do not in fact correspond with reality, as the experiences of companies that have hired people with disabilities have been very positive. Studies show significant benefits for companies, including improved productivity and profitability, reduced turnover and better employee retention, increased reliability and punctuality, stronger loyalty, and a positive company image. Many studies have also found that a positive past experience with a disabled employee increases an employer’s willingness to recruit people with disabilities in the future.
The Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment’s report also highlights the challenges facing employment services. Surveys show that people with disabilities feel that service providers do not always have sufficient expertise in specific disability issues. Indeed, the vast majority of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the support provided by employment services.
Active labour market policies focus primarily on unemployed jobseekers, i.e., those receiving unemployment benefits. In contrast, some people with disabilities receive a disability pension which often excludes them from employment support services. This means that they are not targeted in the same way by employment support services, nor are they offered the same job search support as unemployed jobseekers. This finding is confirmed by surveys: Many respondents reported that they had experienced, or had been told directly, that they could not register with employment services because they were receiving a disability pension. We may well ask how much untapped potential there is in the population outside the labour force who would be willing and able to work if the conditions were right, and if there were no discriminatory structures in society.
Ableism
The one-sidedness of the employment landscape is a major problem. While gender equality and the representation of different cultural backgrounds have become increasingly visible, disability is still an almost invisible part of the visual representation of working life. Organisations’ promotional materials, websites, and social media content are almost invariably only built around imagery featuring people without disabilities. This invisibility contributes to the reinforcement of discriminatory structures and can undermine the confidence of jobseekers with disabilities in their own chances in the labour market.
The poor labour market position of people with disabilities is largely due to the prevailing ‘ableism’ in Finnish society. Ableism is a way of thinking that sees non-disability as the norm and disability as the exception. This norm, taken for granted, leads to people with disabilities often being treated as ‘not normal’, which creates discriminatory structures and attitudes. Ableism manifests itself, for example, in the fact that the competence and ability of disabled people to perform various tasks is more easily questioned than that of non-disabled people, even if their knowledge and skills are fully adequate.
In most situations, the purpose of work supported by pay subsidies is to help a jobseeker find employment in the open labour market. Pay subsidies can also be granted to help an unemployed person who lacks professional skills or whose permanent or permanent-in-nature disability or condition reduces their chances of finding suitable work. However, there may be discriminatory practices and attitudes towards those receiving pay subsidies. Employers and colleagues may belittle workers who have been employed through pay subsidies, or even treat them as second-class workers. Such attitudes are very damaging and perpetuate the stigma against pay subsidies in the labour market.
Young people
The Ami Foundation is particularly interested in promoting positive change in the labour market, especially with regard to the career and training paths of young people. The Foundation’s thematic focus for 2025 is NEET youth (in Finnish). In Finland, the proportion of NEETs (young people not in employment, education or training) is higher than in other Nordic countries. In this context, it is critical to note that a young person’s disability or long-term condition significantly increases the risk of long-term exclusion from education and employment.
Academic research undeniably shows that long-term condition or disability is strongly associated with prolonged NEET status. People registered with certain disabilities are up to 40% more likely to end up in the NEET group than other young people. This underlines the need for targeted interventions to help young people with disabilities to make the transition into education, training, and employment.
The educational attainment of young people with disabilities has risen and their educational choices have diversified over the past decades. Despite this, their transition to work and becoming independent is often slower than for other people of the same age, and some remain outside the labour market altogether. Discrimination and discriminatory structures affect young people with disabilities already when they apply for studies, and also during their studies. In turn, difficulties in attaching to education and employment at a young age have far-reaching consequences later in life. It is therefore particularly important that young people with disabilities have equal opportunities to study and to enter working life. If this is not the case, we will lose a huge amount of skills and potential.
Educational attainment is a key factor for employment, and we know that the educational attainment of people with disabilities has improved in recent years in Finland and other Nordic countries. Higher education increases their chances of entering the labour market. However, studies show that even if the educational level of people with disabilities were to rise to the same level as the rest of the population, the gap between employment rates would narrow by only about three percentage points. This shows that increasing education alone is not sufficient to address the disadvantaged labour market position of people with disabilities, but that other targeted measures are also needed to address structural barriers.
Sources
- Atanasova Angelina: Narrowing the employment gap for people with disabilities. European Economic, Employment and Social Policy. 2023.
- Trade Union Pro: Syrjintää, työttömyyttä ja huonommat työsuhteen ehdot – vammaisten ihmisten asema työelämässä on heikko. (Discrimination, unemployment and poorer employment conditions – the position of people with disabilities in working life is poor.) 2025.
- European Disability Forum: Majority of persons with disabilities locked out of quality employment. 2023.
- Eurofound: Vammaisten ja pitkäaikaissairaiden nuorten aktiivinen osallisuus. (Active inclusion of young people with disabilities and long-term conditions.) 2012.
- Gewurtz, R. et al. (2016). Hiring people with disabilities: a scoping review. Work, 54(1), 135-148.
- Højbjerre, Jakobsen, Thuesen, Rosenberg, Thomsen, Stubkjær, Hardonk, Einarsdóttir, Korpi, Saikku, Mesiäislehto: Increasing employment among vulnerable groups. The Nordic Council of Ministers. 2025.
- Ketju Magazine: Työnantajat tyytyväisiä kehitysvammaisiin työntekijöihinsä. (Employers are happy with their employees with intellectual disabilities.)
- The Finnish Association of People with Physical Disabilities: Vammaisten ihmisten työllisyystilanteesta tarvitaan lisää tietoa. (More information is needed on the employment situation of people with disabilities.)
- Lindsay, S. et al. (2018). A Systematic Review of the Benefits of Hiring People with Disabilities. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 28(4), 634-655.
- Maunu Tallamaria, Räisänen Heikki, Tuomaala Mika: Pitkä työttömyys. (Long-term unemployment.) TEM-analyyseja 114/2023.
- Ministry of Justice: Syrjintä Suomessa 2020–2023: Tietoraportti. (Discrimination in Finland 2020-2023. Data Report.) 2024.
- Finnish National Agency for Education: Concepts.
- THL: Vammaisia on työikäisistä suomalaisista 7 tai 29 prosenttia. (7 or 29% of Finns of working age have a disability.)
- Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment: Vammaisten henkilöiden työllistymisen rakenteelliset esteet. (Structural barriers to employment of persons with disabilities.) 2020.
- Työelämä ja köyhyys –teematyöryhmän raportti: Miten vammaisten ihmisten oikeudet toteutuvat Suomessa? (Working Life and Poverty Working Group Report: How are the rights of people with disabilities implemented in Finland?)
- U.S. Department of Labor: Survey of Employer Policies on the Employment of People with Disabilities. 2020.
- Vamlas: Vammaisten nuorten ja nuorten aikuisten kokemuksia työnhausta ja työllistymisestä. (Job search and employment experiences of young people and young adults with disabilities.) 2022.
- Vamlas: Mistä puhumme, kun puhumme ableismista? (What are we talking about when we talk about ableism?) 2021.
- Vesala, H.T. et al. (2016). Työnantajien kokemuksia kehitysvammaisista työntekijöistä. (Employers’ experiences with employees with intellectual disabilities.) Kehitysvammaliiton selvityksiä.
- Non-Discrimination Ombudsman: Selvitys vammaisten syrjintäkokemuksista arjessa. (A study on the experiences of discrimination of people with disabilities in everyday life.) 2016.
We are interested in funding development projects and research that focus on The Ami Foundation’s programme priorities(https://ami.fi/en/our-work/grants/).