PRESS CONFERENCE BY MERRILL LYNCH, NATIONAL BUSINESS AND DISABILITY COUNCIL

ON DISPELLING MYTH OF DISABLED PERSONS’ INABILITY TO WORK

 

While people with disabilities had significantly increased their visibility in the last two decades, there was still an overabundance of myths concerning their employability and viability, Judy Young, Vice-President of the National Business and Disability Council, said at Headquarters today.

Ms. Young, accompanied by Chris Sullivan, Vice-President for Special Needs Financial Services at Merrill Lynch, stressed at a press conference on the occasion of the International Day of Disabled Persons the need for a strong message that the corporate and other workplaces worldwide needed to take bolder steps to ensure that people with disabilities were represented in the workforce.

“The next couple of years will be especially ripe for turning the tide and improving the employment situation of people with disabilities around the world as many developed countries will experience tighter labour markets as a result of the aging population,” she said.  “High life expectancy and falling birth rates in these countries will force businesses to become more creative in filling job vacancies and to take a look at underutilized and non-traditional pools of labour.”

People with disabilities made up one of the largest untapped, talented and viable resources, she said, adding that they represented a customer base with an estimated $1 trillion aggregate income worldwide.  “It is indeed time to turn the tide and recognize people with disabilities as important players in the world economy as workers and customers.”

That was something Merrill Lynch was keenly aware of, said Mr. Sullivan, a 20-year veteran of the firm, who was born with impaired hearing.  Global employers were projecting a shortage of 31 million skilled workers by 2010 and 56 million by 2020.  Against that backdrop, more than 65 per cent of people with disabilities in the United States were unemployed.  Merrill Lynch had already taken steps to combat myths through programmes and training for people with disabilities, and its Special Needs programmes were the only such initiative offered by a full financial firm to serve that market.

“Besides the bottom-line value, employing people with disabilities adds to our firm’s rich diversity,” he said.  “Our employees with disabilities bring with them proven skills and talents that were previously ignored or unrealized.  Through our performance-based culture, they are successfully demonstrating their true value through hard work and exceptional performances.”

He said the firm’s initiatives included participation in a programme titled “Bridging the Gap:  Raising Disability Awareness on Wall Street”, held in October, during the United States Disability Awareness Month.  As a follow-up, Merrill Lynch was now forming a Wall Street Consortium of Diversity and Recruiting, which would hold its first meeting next month in New York.

Merrill Lynch’s Disability Awareness Professional network had more than 600 employees, and the firm currently employed people with disabilities in offices both in the United States and abroad, he said.  Those employees, some of whom were blind, deaf or quadriplegic, were provided with easily available and cost-effective accommodation and technology.

Responding to questions about how people with disabilities fared in developing-world and least-developed-country workplaces and in the European Union, Mr. Sullivan said Merrill Lynch had a very strong training programme and was trying to play a lead role to set examples for other companies.  “We are corporate leaders in the area of special needs.  It’s a matter of breaking down negative perceptions.  You have to look at the person, not the disability.”

He pointed out that since the workforce operated on a supply-and-demand basis, the projected shrinking of labour pools would create a cycle that was more conducive to providing more opportunities for people with disabilities.  “Governments can dictate legislation.  They cannot change attitudes.  Attitudes are only changing when people with disabilities work side by side with people without disabilities, and then they really learn how to value each other and learn about the contributions that each brings to the workplace.  I think supply and demand will turn the tide.”

A spokesman from the United Nations Department of Public Information announced Spain’s ratification today of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, making it the tenth country to do so, and noting that 10 more were needed for the treaty to enter into force.

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For information media • not an official record