Employer attitudes towards people with a psychological disability

Abstract: Only ten percent of people with disabilities in Sweden hold a salaried employment and one of the main barriers in hiring these individuals is employer attitudes. Using a correlational approach, the aim of this study was to investigate employer attitudes towards hiring people with a psychological disability. Two hundred questionnaires were distributed to headhunters and employers with hiring responsibilities and 68 participants (37 women, 31 men) completed the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 34%. The mean value of the dependent variable measuring employer attitudes was 5.04 on a scale of 1-7, with high values indicating that employers are interested in hiring people with disabilities. The results showed that the independent variables “previously employed someone with a disability”, “interested in hiring someone with depression”, and “employers in the businesses of computer/IT, social work/pedagogy and sale/retail” contributed significantly in predicting employer attitudes. The results support previous findings that employers generally hold positive attitudes towards people with disabilities and that if an employer has previously hired someone with a disability they are more interested in doing so again.