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Released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the Government has outlined some insightful statistics about disabled people and employment in 2017 in its latest publication.

The publication comes as part of the Government’s plans to see one million more disabled people in work by 2027, which was put forward in ‘Improving lives: the future of work, health and disability’ in November 2017.

According to the statistics, 3.5 million disabled were in employment between April-June 2017, which is a 5.6 percent increase over a four-year period.

DHSC and DWP also state that disability increases as age increases, with people aged 50-64 accounting for almost half (43 percent) of all working age disabled people. Additionally, the non-disabled employment rate is higher than the disabled employment rate across all age groups.

57 percent of the people reporting disabilities are women and the lowest employment rates are found amongst disabled people who have either learning difficulties, mental illnesses or epilepsy.

There are more disabled people in part-time employment (36 percent) than those without disabilities (24 percent). Furthermore, 42 percent of employed disabled people work in either health and social work, wholesale and retail, or education.

The Government announced in October that it is also providing a £4.2 million fund to help bridge the disability employment gap as part of its ‘Improving lives’ initiative.

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