This Social Market Foundation (SMF) report provides new evidence on the labour market outcomes of Londoners with a work limiting condition or disability.
The employment rate for disabled people in London stands at 46.5%. Meaning that some 370,000 disabled Londoners are out of work. The equivalent for the non-disabled population stands at 85%, meaning that the disability employment gap in London stands at 38.5 percentage points, slightly lower than the national average of 41.5 percentage points.
Average figures across London hide significant variation between the London boroughs, from a disability employment rate gap of 20 percentage points in Richmond to over 50 percentage points in Hammersmith & Fulham.
While London has made progress in increasing disability employment in recent years, there is still much to be done if the Mayor of London’s vision of a “…fairer and more equal city” is to be realised.
To deliver this, the report argues that the Mayor needs to leverage his role in convening and coordinating pan-London work to deliver a fundamental shift in the approach to increasing disability employment. This would establish a Disability Employment Taskforce with the remit of coordinating action, testing new approaches and reporting on progress towards increasing disability employment right across the capital. Success would deliver significant health, well-being and economic benefits as well as significantly reducing benefit expenditure in the Capital.
