5 Ways to Spot the Worst Jobs for Autistic Adults
About Spectroomz - We Help Autistic Adults Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
It’s tricky to talk about the worst jobs for autistic people in terms of a specific job title. There are just too many different ways to be autistic for there to be one prescribed perfect, or imperfect, job.
There do seem to be certain types of jobs, or rather workplace environments and requirements, that are unwelcoming to autistic people. When one of these jobs chews us up and spits us out, it has a tremendous impact on our confidence and overall well being. So how does an autistic adult avoid stumbling into the worst job possible for them?
When we polled autistic adults about the types of work they preferred, we found a range of answers that trended towards a few things.
These 5 factors can significantly impact an autistic person’s ability to keep their job. Seeing these in a job description or as part of a company’s culture almost guarantees that autistics won’t fare well in those positions.
1. Communication Requirements on Job Descriptions
Autistics have frequently said that communicating with neurotypicals feels like we’re constantly translating our natural language to a “more acceptable” neurotypical style. This is an exhaustive aspect of masking that many autistic adults rightfully resent.
We’ve lost countless opportunities to people or organizations with no patience for another way of existing. So here are a couple of ways that communication requirements on job descriptions can show autistic people that the job isn’t a good choice for them.
Excellent written/verbal communication skills
When talking to autistic adults about what kinds of job choices they make, they often say that this phrase in a job description spells trouble. There are a couple reasons for this:
First, a common stereotype about autism is that we’re all “bad” at communicating. These assumptions arise from common autistic issues related to verbal communication (such as delays in verbal speech, losing the ability to speak in certain situations, or minimal speech in general). It is wrong to assume that a person who struggles to use literal words with their mouths is unable to communicate.
The second reason this is a red flag for us has to do with social discrimination. Struggling to coordinate your speech can manifest in many ways. Being able to speak isn’t always an option for autistic people. We also can lose the ability to speak in certain circumstances. Overwhelm is one of my biggest triggers for that but other folks will have other stories.
But communication isn’t confined to whether or not you can use your mouth to speak. Social discrimination happens with autistic adults well beyond verbal communication. Our facial expressions or tones are constant sources of social friction. We might not make the “right face” or have the “right tone” and people will take offense or assume bad things about us.
Most of the time we’re not trying to be rude, we’re existing. We try to be understood, accepting, and believed, but people usually don’t get past their emotional reactions to us.
Autistics often do the “lion’s share” of bridging communication gaps.
So it’s not that we’re not good at verbal communication. It’s that too much emphasis is placed on the “verbal” part, when aspects of that are a literal disability. Most people who insist that traditional talking is an indispensable part of a job haven’t tried many other ways.
We aren’t given the room to be authentic and find masking our natural ways both utterly necessary and physically exhausting.
We need a few adjustments to the conversation to help it better match our pace. This isn’t a huge ask, but it’s treated like it is. To the point where it’s a major red flag if companies include this in their job descriptions. To us, it means we have to be good at your kind of communication and that makes us feel specifically targeted for exclusion.
Alternately, a lot of autistic adults will find that the worst jobs for them are the ones where they’re required to talk to too many people. Sure, there are plenty of extroverted autistic folks, but a lot of us would like a quieter position that lets us focus.
Must be good at receiving feedback, no ego
This is a requirement that tells us that the employer is likely harsh and demanding. Though not universal, a common trait of autism is to be quite self-aware and open to feedback. It’s an instinct often honed to help us build our masks.
There are two other traits found in autism that make this requirement extra detrimental to our success: demand avoidance and rejection sensitivity. Both of these traits are trauma based and would need accommodation and support to navigate.
When we get into the “no ego” territory with job descriptions, it becomes clear that asking for accommodation would be a waste of time. This job is eliminated from consideration for us.
Good interpersonal skills
This harkens back to the issue of communication. What are considered “good” skills are neurotypical skills that will often exclude us from the dynamic. If we can mask well, we might do okay in this position. There’s a much higher risk of burnout in autistic folk who use their masks to get by.
Consider as well that autistic people in general are trying to get along with other people. Sometimes to the point of fawning to avoid rejection, which is a trauma response. Bullying and marginalization are constant problems for autistic people. The workplace is one of the most common places for autistic adults to experience bullying and there usually isn’t much support from our peers.
In fact, it’s often not the work, it’s the bullying and lack of accommodations that makes a working situation unsustainable.
So Basically
Autistic adults will thrive in a work environment that allows our authentic selves to communicate in the ways that work best for us. The worst jobs for us are the ones that don’t provide that.
2. Strict Social Hierarchies
A common autistic trait is to view the world outside of hierarchies, especially when it comes to authority. Sure, leadership is necessary, but we often don’t see it in terms of importance or status. Management are just people with different jobs than we have.
Status is kind of important in companies with strict hierarchies in place, which starts to marginalize us immediately. Now, our natural way of seeing the world is deemed rude.
Workplace discrimination and bullying takes root in power structures like these, where management can either bully us themselves or turn a blind eye to what others might do. We can be gaslighted as the source of the “drama” for standing up for ourselves, asking for accommodations, or being impacted by the stress.
The stress spiral of bullying in the workplace takes a toll on our ability to think and therefore perform our jobs well. Then, we can be deemed “not a good fit” for the culture. Workplaces with strong focus on hierarchies also tend to place a huge emphasis on the idea that productivity equals worth, which encourages autistic burnout. Many autistics who have navigated this workplace culture have found themselves without jobs and too burned out to function.
Both the burnout and the social trauma have lasting impacts on our wellbeing and functioning. This is one of many ways that trauma with authority impacts our daily lives.
3. Fast-Paced Environments
There are several reasons why fast-paced work environments are some of the worst fits for autistic people
Sensory Processing Problems
Autistic people don’t have the best filters on their senses. Stimulation that neurotypical people could easily ignore remains prominent in autistic awareness. It’s easier to become overwhelmed by the wide-open way we perceive the world.
Sensory overwhelm is when our literal nervous systems are too full of stimulation and become dysregulated. It can lead to common autistic experiences such as shutdowns and meltdowns.
Delayed processing
Autistic people often benefit from having a bit of space and time to process new social, work, or environmental demands. For example, I communicate better through email for things like changes of plans or feedback on a project. This allows me to delay responding while I “switch gears” or work to understand what is being asked of me.
Fast-paced work environments don’t allow autistic adults the space they need to process. Plus, these types of environments tend to come with strong pressure to mask, which adds to the layers of things we need to process.
Remember, sensory information isn’t just our eyes and ears, it’s also our situational awareness.
Executive Dysfunction
Executive dysfunction refers to someone’s ability to regulate things like motivation, attention, and transitions. Some ways executive dysfunction can present itself are:
struggling to start a task
switching between tasks
finishing tasks
stopping when it’s time to stop.
While executive dysfunction is something that can be overcome (to an extent) it takes energy to do so. Fast-paced work environments require you to juggle shifting priorities, which usually means being able to pivot from task to task.
So, an autistic adult looking at a job like this is going to have to measure not just how much energy the job will take, but how much extra energy will be eaten by managing their executive dysfunction.
Burnout and Inconsistent Performance
The extra demands placed on an autistic person’s sensory processing and executive functioning by fast-paced environments are a formula for burnout.
There’s pressure for us to bring all of our energy to the job, but without the awareness from our employers that our energy is spent differently than others. It makes us seem “behind” other folks and gives us a ton of pressure to work harder to catch up. This leads to strong performances at the start of our employ, with increasingly inconsistent performances as burnout settles in.
The environment chews us up and spits us out
A lot of times, people are allowed to discriminate against autistic adults for their sensory and functioning impairments without recourse. It comes in the form of:
Unfavorable performance reviews
“You’re not a good fit for our culture”
Helpful advice on how we can work on ourselves more as we’re being fired
Bullying and/or reduced hours/work until we quit
The implied (or explicit) notion that they wouldn’t have hired us if they’d known we were autistic in the interview
On the surface, some of these might seem fair, but they become gaslighting when our disability is entirely ignored from consideration and our jobs are on the line.
4. In-person Interviews
Speaking of the interview process: the traditional approach can be one of the worst ways to hire an autistic person.
For autistic people, the in-person interview is a decathlon of masking. It’s all newness and uncertainty, outside all routines. Many of us are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to answering questions on the spot.
In-person interviews are a collection of social rituals. These rituals have trends and are constantly shifting. There’s tremendous pressure on us to anticipate another’s expectation of us, which isn’t always a strength of ours.
Interview processes that involve demonstrating abilities (like portfolios or completing example tasks) are a much better fit for us. Taking the emphasis away from pitching ourselves on the spot helps us better represent our skills and experience.
5. No social support
Another hidden burden that many autistic adults face in the workplace is self-advocacy. Often, we’re alone in identifying our needs and accommodations We’re alone when it comes to navigating workplace discrimination and bullying.
If we’re lucky, there’s an HR department of some kind, but those aren’t really in place to help employees. They’re there to protect the company, so we aren’t guaranteed the support we might need. The burden to prove ourselves is paved with extra obstacles.
Having other autistic, neurodiverse, or disabled people in our work space gives us collective power. The burden is shared and our credibility is amplified. Without this, we’re stuck with another “invisible” drain on our energy.
What We Hope You Take Away From This Article
The worst types of jobs autistic adults can have are ones that don’t allow us authenticity or representation.
These are jobs where:
Worth is tied to productivity rather than personhood
The signs of our disability are what devalue our contributions to the team or the workplace
There is no structure of social support to help us navigate workplace relationships and disability accommodations
Neurotypical social performance is the only standard in consideration
The demands on our sensory processing and executive dysfunction don’t account for the existence of those disabilities.
The best jobs for autistic people are willing to reimagine the workplace, allowing it to exist outside of a traditional capitalist space. The prospect of accommodating an autistic adult’s needs are only insurmountable if you rely on neurotypical ideals to structure your company. Many do, but those with more imagination find that it’s not really that hard to help an autistic adult thrive.
About the writer
I’m a writer, artist, and advocate who loves living in Maine among the trees and oceanside villages. I’m also autistic, ADHD, and PTSD. My education, both academic and personal, has centered around mental health and neurodevelopmental disabilities, as well as discrimination and the socioeconomic consequences of living disabled in America. I work to plant seeds and spread ideas through my writing and will be among the autistic adults helping you understand your autistic kids better on Spectroomz’ Ask An Autistic. You can find me on Twitter @ladysnessa.
5 Best Choices for Autistic Careers
About Spectroomz - We Help Autistic Adults Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
We’ve covered the worst jobs for autistic adults, so now let’s talk about the best choices autistic people can make in their job search.
There are a lot of factors that, when considered, would help autistic people thrive in their careers. Many of the things we will discuss in this article can be easily incorporated into any workspace that wanted to try. It’s important to remember that some of the biggest obstacles autistic people face in the workplace come from non-autistic people who don’t want to try.
So, let’s talk about 5 career choices an autistic adult can make when looking for a job.
Jobs that require creativity
Autistic people tend to be very creative individuals. We gravitate towards artsy things like writing, painting, graphic design,theater, music, etc.
We also tend to be very entrepreneurial, though this might partially stem from workplace discrimination against autistic people. No one will hire us, so we start our own businesses.
But it’s not just literal art that we excel at. We’re good at all types of creativity because we tend to be naturals at understanding and designing systems. We recognize patterns and think in ways that allow us to make unique connections.
This makes us good at problem solving, which is a very creative endeavor. That’s why you’ll see us gravitating not just towards the arts, but towards things like coding and tech support. Things that don’t seem traditionally creative, but that require us to recognize patterns and create solutions.
2. Communication that allows for delayed interactions
There’s a myth that autistic people are bad at communicating. The problem with this myth is that it only incorporates neurotypical styles of communication and doesn’t recognize autistic ones.
When our styles are considered, it becomes clear that autistic adults are no better or worse than a neurotypical at communicating. We just have our own style.
For example, pattern recognition is really good for sales, and austistic adults can be great salespeople. However, many of us would find it overwhelming to navigate a rotation of strangers face-to-face. So, we might thrive better doing social media marketing rather than in-person retail.
One reason for this is that we tend to have more social and communication success when we have the time to compose our responses. The delayed communication allowed by emails, comments, texts, etc can help us process the information so that our responses are helpful and accurate.
How this helps us avoid conflict
Another way delayed communication helps autistic folks is with conflict management. A lot of social trauma for austic people comes from having our tones and faces misread or from misspeaking while trying to keep up with a high pressure conversation.
Here’s another example: a writer needs feedback from their editor. If the writer has rejection sensitivity, it might be very difficult for them to get that feedback without a big emotional reaction. In person, that emotional reaction will register on our faces and in our tones, even if we know that the feedback is valid, fair, and not an attack. There’s so much room for miscommunication in that scenario.
Assuming the worst of an autistic person during a time like this is a common way that biases against autism manifest themselves in social settings. We lose jobs like crazy over this.
However, getting that feedback in an email allows us to process our rejection trauma and the emotions attached to it, return to the feedback in a better headspace, and communicate with the editor without the social bias entering the scenario.
Having room to process and prepare a response is pivotal to successful communication for a lot of autistic people, both in the personal lives and in the workplace.
3. Working in teams
Another common myth assumed about autistic adults is that they aren’t social beings. We prefer to work alone!
That’s not entirely true, though. Sure, a lot of us do like to work alone, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the only way we want to work.
We need friends, colleagues, and social inclusion just like any other human being. That’s why the best jobs for autistic people are jobs that have teams that we can work with. Not just any team, though. One that allows for trust building, authenticity, and a sense of connection for everyone involved.
Some autistic people will enjoy interacting with a rotating cast of strangers, but many of us thrive in a group of the same people that we can take our time getting to know and grow comfortable with. Our brains love routine, after all.
These environments benefit us because they provide us with human connection, community, and belonging. They can also benefit us because group efforts succeed better than one person left to do everything alone. Having social support that tries to understand us takes pressure off of our executive functioning and helps prevent the freeze up that happens during in-person interactions.
This dynamic is only going to work if every member of the team is aware of the potential for discriminatory biases to enter the group. Ways that this group dynamic could work will be explored a little later in this article.
4. A job that allows for autonomy
Let’s look at a list of reasons why an austistic person might want to work alone:
They concentrate better without distractions
It’s easier on their rejection sensitivity to work where no one can see them (which is a trauma response)
Working alone allows them to stim and self regulate in ways that might be distracting in a communal environment, but that significantly improves the autistic adult’s work performance. (ie tapping, pacing, echolalia, etc)
There are fewer sensory demands.
Removing the social setting prevents a ton of the workplace discrimination against autistic people because it removes the social biases that fuel it. (ie, we make the “wrong” face or have the “wrong” tone)
The need to balance autonomy and teamwork
As you can see, social trauma is a major contributing factor to our desire to work alone. We feel compelled to work alone because isolation prevents further trauma. Isolation can seem like our only option, and that’s just not healthy.
Humans are social beings and research shows that social connection and support protects people from the long-lasting impacts of trauma.
That being said, having the space to regulate our nervous systems, control our sensory environments, and manage our focus will allow us to perform our jobs more consistently. Some of the best jobs for autistic people will allow them to work on their own and then touch base with a consistent, supportive team on a regular basis.
5. Mentors
A mentor can improve how successful an autistic person is in a workplace, especially while starting out. Mentors help in many ways:
They help with “experience gaps” by providing one-on-one guidance
They provide a way for feedback to be delivered safely
They lessen demands on executive functioning (ex: during transitions, maintaining focus, prioritizing tasks)
They ease the sense of alienation by creating a team dynamic
They reduce the burden of self-advocating by creating a base of social support
Having a set person that an autistic person can collaborate with and learn from will allow them to thrive in their careers. There’s the routine of the same person, the chance to build and gain trust, and the personalized career/skill development all helping support the autistic person in their work.
Again, social connection is protective. There’s less room for bullying or discrimination to take root if the autistic person has a clear ally in the workplace. We won’t experience social trauma as acutely with a colleague in our camp.
Bonus Tip: Other NDs
Being part of a diverse team that includes other autistic folks and other forms of neurodiversity also means that we have allies. This evens the social dynamic in a workplace and gives us bargaining power. We will be part of what shapes the workplace culture; we won’t just be asked to fit into something that already exists.
It’s important to talk about the ways in which autstic people can succeed. Too much emphasis is put on our “deficits '' or “difficulties” when the ideas of what is successful are shaped by neurotypical standards. The best thing we can do for autistic folks is to reimagine how we work so that autistic ways of thinking, communicating, and existing are incorporated. We don’t just want jobs, we want fulfilling careers.
About the writer
I’m a writer, artist, and advocate who loves living in Maine among the trees and oceanside villages. I’m also autistic, ADHD, and PTSD. My education, both academic and personal, has centered around mental health and neurodevelopmental disabilities, as well as discrimination and the socioeconomic consequences of living disabled in America. I work to plant seeds and spread ideas through my writing and will be among the autistic adults helping you understand your autistic kids better on Spectroomz’ Ask An Autistic. You can find me on Twitter @ladysnessa.
5 Myths About Autism in the Workplace
About Spectroomz - We Help Autistic Adults Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
We’ve talked about unemployment rates among autistic people, and we’ve talked about what works and what doesn’t work for autistic adults in the workplace. Now let's discuss some of the myths about autistics that leave us on uneven footing while we try to find good jobs.
Autistic people can’t communicate well.
One of the more prevalent myths about autistic adults is that we’re bad at communicating and therefore not fit to work in jobs that require it. While many austistic people experience difficulties with some areas of communication (ie verbalization, reading social cues) that doesn’t mean that we’re bad at communicating.
There are plenty of non-speaking people who communicate effectively through writing, sign language, or AAC devices. Autistic folks can also struggle to maintain speech under pressure, but do great at emails and interactions with familiar faces.
Also, think of how much emphasis is put on aspects of communication that aren’t actually that important. Did you know that you can completely blow an interview by pausing too long to consider an answer to a question? How uptight is that?
A lot of autistic people liken communicating with non-autistics to a constant need to translate. Like we’re speaking different languages. This applies to many aspects of communicating, including both verbal and nonverbal cues.
We show we’re listening by sharing experiences that parallel yours. We might fidget or avoid eye contact to help ourselves gather our thoughts or process your speech. We tend to value honesty and integrity over politics and hierarchies. We take our conversations slow and skip a lot of the small talk in favor of topics we can exchange information on.
Info dumping is an autistic love language, though many non-autistics just assume we’re being snotty and rude.
In many -- if not most -- cases, all it would take to eliminate this myth about autistic people would be to reimagine what a conversation looks like. And maybe for non-autistic people to get off their high horses about autistic facial expressions, tones, and methods of relating information.
Regardless of neurotype, we all have different levels of communication skills. People tend to overlook this fact when it comes to autism and assume we lack them altogether. So many of our skills are overlooked by employers. Another example of overlooking our contributions can be found in our next myth.
2. We don’t have work experience.
There are a number of reasons why autistic people might have unevenly developed skills in the workplace:
They start a new job, begin training, and then lose that job due to workplace discrimination before they can “master” the new skill.
The demands of the job cause them to burn out, which tends to leave them unemployed again. Burnout can come with a noticeable loss in skill. People experiencing burnout will find themselves physically incapable of keeping their jobs.
A lack of social support or mentorship means they learn new skills on their own.
Autism is neurological and directly impacts a person’s development. This in itself can create an uneven skill set. A person might be very detail oriented while editing a spreadsheet, but struggle to recognize when another task needs to be done.
They have co-occurring disabilities (like ADHD or a learning disability) that hinders their ability to consistently perform certain tasks. Having dyscalculia means they might make lots of errors on seemingly simple tasks related to math, music, or directions (like on a map). Executive dysfunction might make it hard for them to consistently apply new knowledge.
Let’s use an example that ties many of these factors together: An autistic writer -- who also has ADHD -- might struggle to find work in a traditional workplace. So they take up freelancing. Because they have to freelance alone, they must learn the entire business of freelancing with only the resources they can find. These will likely be free (therefore incomplete) resources because they struggle to find work so they don’t have money to pay for mentorship.
Still, they learn the skills necessary to run a successful blog. The problem is, they don’t have the executive functioning to write on a set schedule and it takes a lot of extra energy to be a writer, researcher, editor, graphic designer, and social media manager all on your own.
Keep in mind that difficulty managing/maintaining motivation is a huge part of what makes executive dysfunction disabling.
If they had a client that could provide an external source of motivation and/or were part of a team that split the work, it would take pressure off of their executive dysfunction. But they have to prove they have the skills to get the job.
They can’t build a portfolio without support, and they can’t get support without a portfolio.
Add to that the burnout that comes from running every aspect of a thing all by yourself while managing a disability and an autistic person can find that they can’t perform the skills they've learned anymore.
Routines fall apart. They can’t focus or keep writing. They miss deadlines and people lose faith in them, even if only a little. Their reputation is damaged, as is their self-image.
Scenarios like this completely undermine a person’s experience level. People will assume we don’t have experience and relegate us to entry level, minimum wage jobs. They will look at what we managed to do and deem it unimpressive. It will be hard to accurately represent our efforts, regardless of the blood, sweat, and tears poured into the work. And we will question our own worth, driving us to burn ourselves out at the next job.
It’s easy to become resentful and withdrawn with all that misrepresentation at play. Which takes us into our next myth:
3. We don’t like people.
This myth harkens back to the one about communication. It’s assumed that because autistic people would often rather work alone, they don’t like people. Because we tend to be isolated, it’s assumed that we’d rather be alone.
But this isn’t the case at all! A lot of time, working alone helps us manage our sensory and focusing needs. We prefer it because it helps us perform our jobs more comfortably, without interruptions, social demands, or sensory input that we can’t control.
One of the most heartbreaking parts of this myth is the trauma behind it. You’ll often hear autistic people say we don’t like people and are better off alone. But there’s always a sense of loss in those words. A sense of resignation rooted in self-preservation.
We are hurt by being forced to mask our authentic selves. It’s no fun to be called difficult or to be bullied for being obviously different. Our literal bodies and brains are injured from the stress of burning out, getting no social support, and losing everything while the people around us blame us for it.
The lack of understanding or allies in our lives leaves us to advocate for ourselves. Organizations meant to help us spread hateful lies about us that professionals eat up. That’s why so many of us make it well into adulthood before we’re even diagnosed.
So, it’s not that we don’t like people; it’s that we don’t like interpersonal trauma.
The next myth is a prime example of what happens when a lack of understanding meets social discrimination. People will decide our needs are invalid and reject us. In other words, they decide that
4. We’re difficult to accommodate.
Autistic people tend to be labeled as difficult by modern society. It’s another way that we’re dismissed and taken in bad faith. You’d be surprised how much of this is done by people who simply don’t want to try to understand autism better.
We’re frequently told that our needs for accommodation are too hard or too much to ask for. In the United States, the American Disabilities Act states that reasonable accommodations must be granted in the workplace. However, this leaves a huge loophole where employers can just tell us we’re not reasonable.
Do you know the kinds of things autistic people need to thrive? Let me list a few accommodations and what you’d need to accomplish them:
The ability to control sensory demands - you can accomplish this with simple equipment such as noise-canceling headphones, dimmable lights, and a door that closes.
An ally or advocate - maybe a union, a mentor, or a peer who shares the burden of advocacy
The ability to work from home - we can conserve our energy by reducing the need to get ready, travel, and socialize before we get to our work. We can also manage sensory issues, other disabilities, and burnout better this way.
Slight adaptations to workplace culture and interview processes - give us interview questions ahead of time so we don’t freeze up when asked. Give us detailed, direct instructions that tell us what is expected of us. Assume our mistakes are made and our questions are asked in good faith. Create room for our way of communicating and existing. Meet us in the middle.
Every autistic person is different. Therefore, the types of accommodations that we’ll need will differ. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s really that hard to navigate. First, ask us. Second, be creative.
The bulk of our accommodation requests will give us room to manage our needs ourselves. And it cannot be stated enough that ensuring we have social support while we navigate workplace dynamics will be essential to our survival in the workplace. Not because we’re so bad at it, but because we’re so vulnerable to bullying and discrimination.
Implementing changes in how autistic people are viewed and/or treated by employers goes a long way in helping us maintain employment. This level of independence isn’t something that’s envisioned for autistic people, especially those of us who require support at home (which is way more of us than you think). That’s what our last myth seeks to address.
5. Autistic people can’t keep a job.
Given the right environment, many autistic people are able to work long term, even if it’s only part time. There’s this idea that having support needs means you can’t work. There’s a similar idea that the ability to have a job means you won’t need any support. Most autistic people are shades of both.
First of all, assume capability, even if accommodations and lifelong support are needed. There is no one prescribed way of existing or working. We are nuanced and complex beings.
That being said, the fact remains that many autistic people have really inconsistent work histories. Hopefully by this point in the article you should be able to identify many reasons why, but I’ll summarize a few here just in case:
We pick the wrong kinds of jobs - for example, we likely aren’t going to thrive in jobs that are face-paced, full of sensory and social demands, and require rapidly cycling through multiple tasks.
We burn out - there are countless reasons why an autistic person might burn out. Spending too long with an excessive amount of sensory information can burn us out. But autistic people are often stuck in a cycle of proving themselves. They’re trapped into people pleasing their way into a burnout to show themselves and others that they aren’t lazy or bad in some way.
There’s also the fact that disabilities require time and energy to manage, no matter what they are. Most employers don’t allow for that and don’t recognize that energy usage as valid or valuable in a workplace.
Social discrimination - Autistic people are especially vulnerable to bullying. We tend to be accommodating, trusting, and naive, well into adulthood. Social exclusion is one of our biggest obstacles to well being. At work, we aren’t hired if we disclose, or we don’t disclose and we’re pushed out when they figure us out. There is little protection for us, both legally and socially.
In contrast, an autistic person who has a job that supports them socially and professionally won’t burn out at the same rates. Our mental and physical health will be better and our finances more stable.
Not surprisingly, we’d also manage to contribute significantly to the company we work for. We’re curious and creative folk, after all.
Whether you’re an employer trying to adjust your work culture or an autistic adult looking for career advice, keep these 5 myths in mind and don’t fall for the lies. With the proper environment, autistic people won’t just have jobs, but fulfilling careers.
About the writer
I’m a writer, artist, and advocate who loves living in Maine among the trees and oceanside villages. I’m also autistic, ADHD, and PTSD. My education, both academic and personal, has centered around mental health and neurodevelopmental disabilities, as well as discrimination and the socioeconomic consequences of living disabled in America. I work to plant seeds and spread ideas through my writing and will be among the autistic adults helping you understand your autistic kids better on Spectroomz’ Ask An Autistic. You can find me on Twitter @ladysnessa.
The 5 Best and Worst Jobs for Autistic People (with 5 Myths to Explain Why)
About Spectroomz - We Help Autistic Adults Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
📣New on Spectroomz - How to get a job when you’re autistic course
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📣New on Spectroomz - How to get a job when you’re autistic course 〰️
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The unemployment rate among autistic adults is higher than it is with adults with other disability types. Many of us struggle to find a job, let alone keep it. Those of us that do struggle to work full time. In fact, up to 74% of autistic adults who have jobs work fewer than 20 hours a week. As much as 85% of autistic adults are either unemployed or underemployed (meaning they work part-time, low wage jobs).
But why is this rate so high? What’s fueling the employment crisis for autistic adults?
There are a couple of things to consider when examining the factors that answer this question:
Many autistic people have co-occurring conditions (like OCD, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, ADHD (see best jobs for ADHD), PTSD, etc) that can increase their disability. Issues like executive dysfunction, sensory processing disorders, and chronic pain will reduce the number of working hours an autistic person can sustain.
People discriminate against autistic people all the time. Workplace discrimination and bullying in the workplace are significant barriers to both attaining and maintaining employment. Additionally, workplace policies and interview practices are often so antithetical to the autistic way of being that they serve to systematically exclude us rather than fairly consider us.
Obviously, there is a lot more that could be considered when examining unemployment in autistic people, but the two issues above are enough to get us started.
This guide is meant to help explain some of the considerations autistic people go through when looking for a job. It’s also geared toward helping potential employers understand the autistic experience a bit better as we seek to navigate the workplace (and all it’s politics, hierarchies, and policies). We’ll discuss a few things:
Ready? Let’s dig in!
About the writer
I’m a writer, artist, and advocate who loves living in Maine among the trees and oceanside villages. I’m also autistic, ADHD, and PTSD. My education, both academic and personal, has centered around mental health and neurodevelopmental disabilities, as well as discrimination and the socioeconomic consequences of living disabled in America. I work to plant seeds and spread ideas through my writing and will be among the autistic adults helping you understand your autistic kids better on Spectroomz’ Ask An Autistic. You can find me on Twitter @ladysnessa.
Workplace Discrimination: What the LGBT Movement Can Teach Autistics
By: Vanessa Blanchard
The autistic and LGBT communities have a lot of overlapping links to each other. First, autistic people are more likely to belong to the LGBTQ+ community than other segments of the population. Another important area of overlap involves employment discrimination.
At this point, most autistic advocacy is self-advocacy, but the LGBT movement has made some progress in organizing their movement enough to have made some real social and legislative progress. For example, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the LGBTQIA community was included in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that bars individuals from being fired from a job for being gay or trans.
While arguably it took way too long for such a ruling to take place, the specification of the LGBT community’s inclusion in the Civil Rights Act is an important thing for autistic folks to take note of.
Because protections for autistic people in the workplace don’t seem to exist, even though there are laws in place that purport to protect us.
Autistic Discrimination in the Workplace
Employment among autistic adults is abysmally low. Research shows that only 54% of autistic adults worked during their early adulthood (ages 18-25). 80% of those that did work during that time worked in part time, low wage jobs.
While some of this can be explained by delays in personal development, which is consistent with a developmental disorder, an even bigger obstacle to explore are the ways that workplace discrimination is allowed to run rampant. Jobs for autistic adults are hard to come by. Even if we can get through the interview process, keeping a job is often its own insurmountable task as many autistics report that discrimination is a daily reality for them in the workplace.
Even with the ADA here in America, there are many loopholes that leave room for companies to discriminate against their employees, including “At Will” laws that allow employers to lie about or refuse to disclose the reasons behind firing someone.
The thing is most accommodations will never be enough if they don’t address the social biases that greet autistic people in public spheres.
Lessons Autistic Advocates Can Learn from the LGBT Movement
So, organization is necessary. Because when you ask autistics about workplace discrimination and bullying the same stories arise again and again towards our specific traits and disabilities. The laws as they stand aren’t enough. We need to take a page from the LGBT movement and find ways to shift the focus away from individual self-advocacy towards a more unified approach that targets the distinction of our specific community within the laws.
Here are a few lessons we can learn from the LGBT movement that might help us:
1) Create a long-term game plan – Change is too slow, and we will be more effective in our own movement if we remember that and adjust our expectations accordingly.
2) Focus on tangible goals – we need to work toward change that can be measured. Tangible goals are easier to articulate and persuade others to help with than vague goals that won’t show any specific progress. These goals can include:
Gaining specific accommodations for interview processes and workplace environments.
Establishing a support network of peers, leaders, and advocates for your workplace. (Examples: reaching out to HR or forming a union)
Specific legislative changes you’d like to see occur (like specifying Autistic people as a specific segment of the population that the ADA applies to.)
3) Focus on direction action campaigning – Change comes from focused effort, not random outbursts. This is part of why self-advocacy isn’t the most effective form of advocacy. It places all the emphasis on independent bursts of activity rather than organized, focused efforts.
For example, the latest ruling of the Supreme Court to include the LGBTQ+ community in workplace protections was the result of three different lawsuits against companies that discriminated against their employees based on the defendants being gay or trans. Each individual lawsuit was a direct action taken that was strengthened by creating a collective effort with intentional legal strategizing.
4) There doesn’t need to be a hierarchical structure in order for us to organize – As with other movements, like BLM, the LGBT movement has no central leader. Rather, it has a unifying central ideal of achieving equality and diversity. These ideals are something the autistic community already has, and we tend to be really good at thriving without hierarchies.
Individual actions won’t always succeed but aren’t automatically failures, either. – In order for those three cases to get to the Supreme Court, they had to have failed in lower courts. They appealed the decisions of those lower courts to work their way up the justice system hierarchy. “Failed” action that generates support and awareness is not a failure. Measure the success of your movement by the growth of both your community and the support that surrounds it.
For an autistic specific example, look at the debacle with Sia’s movie Music. The outcry from within the community was very unified and pointed. We had a clear message and many of us took the time to compose very thorough breakdowns of the conversations held around the problems with that movie. Those carefully documented conversations have been published on multiple platforms and got a lot of attention. Calls from within the community for external support were heard and answered with a fresh round of articles condemning the movie from neurotypical perspectives that acknowledged our pain.
Among the many complaints brought up was the lack of jobs for autistic people, specifically the non-speaking, in both the acting and writing industries.
We couldn’t get Sia to stop her movie, but we could bring to light many autistic issues, including workplace discrimination.
5) Recruiting community leaders persuades groups faster – The LGBT movement showed us that starting at the top of an organization works far better than trying to change the minds of each person individually.
If you’re focusing on autistic advocacy within the workplace, your advocacy strategies should include recruiting organizational leaders to your cause. Having a company’s owner or HR department on your side means that you’ll have protection from discrimination even if you haven’t changed any individual minds.
Bullying in the workplace is a constant problem for autistic people and not having to rely on appealing to your bully’s better sense is simply a better approach to self-advocating.
That being said, “coming out” to a group you are well established in can also have a powerful impact as people tend to be more accepting of people they know and respect. This isn’t always an option for autistic folks as ostracization is one of the biggest social obstacles we face. However, those who are in a position can leverage their social standings to help spread acceptance.
An example would be Anthony Hopkins announcing he’s autistic. Immediately, he makes it easier for other entertainers to come out, he gives autistic people a sense of representation, and he normalizes a more accurate idea of autism to the general public.
6) Establish a group dynamic and use it to confront employment discrimination – Identify your allies and use them to build support networks. With this network, approach HR or other leaders within the company or organization.
This can be done on an individual and industry level.
Expect to be dismissed at first and don’t give up. This is why you’ve gathered your support network. It makes it so that you can persevere in the face of dismissal without having to carry the entire burden of autistic advocacy on your shoulders alone.
Use the group dynamic you’ve created to start an employee resource group. These are organizations that offer mentorships, advocacy support, and utilize the group dynamic to offer legitimacy to your community.
Spectroomz is an example of an employee resource group that utilizes many of these advocacy strategies well. There are career development and community resources for autistic people. The business model creates a group dynamic that lends authority to our community, ensuring that companies will provide appropriate accommodations to autistic folk. The platform is built to allow us to disclose and “come out” to our clients/employers without fear of repercussion. Our individual efforts combine to increase accurate representation and acceptance, which leads to more jobs for autistic people.
We must remember that while personal and professional development are important, they aren’t what will stop employment discrimination against autistic people. Solving this issue will take time and organized effort between many autistic advocates. The last few decades have seen significant progress for the LGBT community and we can learn a lot from their approaches to progressing social attitudes towards their community.
About the writer
I’m a writer, artist, and advocate who loves living in Maine among the trees and oceanside villages. I’m also autistic, ADHD, and PTSD. My education, both academic and personal, has centered around mental health and neurodevelopmental disabilities, as well as discrimination and the socioeconomic consequences of living disabled in America. I work to plant seeds and spread ideas through my writing and will be among the autistic adults helping you understand your autistic kids better on Spectroomz’ Ask An Autistic. You can find me on Twitter @ladysnessa.