Autism Employment Statistics: Your Complete Guide to Employment Trends Among Autistic Adults
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By: Vanessa Blanchard
Unemployment in the Autistic community is known to be high. But what exactly does that mean? In general, unemployment is a term that denotes a snapshot -- a moment or two in someone’s entire career. In fact, unemployment is measured specifically in terms of someone who is without a job and is actively looking. Yet, the autism unemployment rate doesn’t represent a mere snapshot in an individual career. Rather, employment statistics around autism show a trend that is chronic and extreme. Decades of research shows that Autistic people are significantly disadvantaged when it comes to having stable careers. This article seeks to review much of that research and outline important Autistic employment statistics that cover a wide range of career-related factors, including:
The Autistic Worker
Autism Employment Trends
Autism Discrimination in the Workplace
Factors in Success for Autistic Employment
A Full Picture of Autistic Support
Conclusion
Data shows disproportionately high unemployment and disproportionately low wages across time and space, employment trends that cannot be attributed to individual Autistic behavior. Yet, research consistently places the responsibility to overcome on Autistic shoulders. The main focus is on teaching social skills to overcome the intense social barriers -- often framed as an Autistic person’s social deficits -- that Autistic employees face while working or seeking work. There is a clear bias, and probable misconception, about autism and where the onus falls for social competency and career success.
So, let’s break down all the Autistic employment stats, and examine what the data shows is happening in Autistic careers. We’ll start by defining the Autistic worker.
The Autistic Worker
Autism has a wide range of traits and characteristics that present differently in every person. Here are just a few examples:
Some will be sensory seeking, some avoiding, and some will need degrees of both.
Some will be extroverted, others introverted.
Some will be speaking and others will communicate through alternative methods.
Some will require high levels of support, others will be able to maintain with lower levels of support. Most need support of some kind. Nearly all need more support than they get.
Etc
There are also many common co-occuring issues found alongside autism, such as ADHD, OCD, PTSD, digestion issues, Ehler Danlos Syndrome, and more.
The prevalence of autism
The CDC reports that the prevalence of autism is increasing (1). Currently, it is believed that about 2.8% of the population (or 1:36 people), are Autistic. The demographic makeup of Autistic diagnosis is shifting to include higher numbers of women and people of color. Changes in these demographics are the result in shifting social understanding and shifting access to a diagnosis.
Prevalence statistics only represent those diagnosed with autism. Autism exists without a diagnosis, and it’s often very difficult and expensive to receive one. However, increased understanding of autism is likely to continue increasing access to a diagnosis, so prevalence will continue to grow in coming years.
The large number of late-diagnosed Autistics means there are many undiagnosed Autistic people in the workplace. For example, some self-report measures show that the prevalence of autism almost doubles within the tech industry (2).
Undiagnosed Autistic folks are at higher risk for career disruption because they don’t have access to accommodations or protections under disability laws. Yet their disabilities remain. It’s likely that outcomes could be consistent or even worse for these individuals than those represented in research.
More autism prevalence in boys than girls?
While the CDC has since updated this statistic, it has recently reported that boys were 4 times more likely than girls to be diagnosed as Autistic. This ratio is not reflected in the Autistic community and even some research has expressed surprise at the disparity. One study found an “unexpectedly large representation from female participants (43.31%)” (5) and quoted the CDC statistic as the reason for their surprise.
The disparity in measured prevalence by research bodies, such as the CDC, seems to exist along race and gender lines. However, our review of the research shows that intersectionality is a factor that is rarely considered in autism employment statistics.
Education levels among Autistic adults
Education levels vary within the Autistic population, but research indicates that it’s common for Autistic people to have at least some post-secondary education:
One study found that 86% of their participants had completed at least some college and that 55% of participants in the study obtained a degree (5). This was by far the highest rate of completion found in decades of research. One possible reason for this is that the participation pool of this study was skewed towards privilege (55% male, 87% white) (5).
The National Center for Special Education Research followed a group of Autistic young adults from the ages of 18-26 and found that 44% attended post-secondary education and 17% of participants got their degree during the study (22).
A third study found that 13% of their participants went to college and only 4.3% of participants obtained a degree during the study (15).
Multiple studies found that academic support was directly linked with academic success for Autistic college students (15, 22).
Educated white men with family support were most likely to have positive outcomes with employment (15). It’s also likely that scholastic accommodations drastically impact completion rates, which we’ll discuss in the Factors of Success for Autistic Employment section. Below is a graph that illustrates the attendance and completion rates found in these studies.
Autistic Work Ethic
If you talk to Autistic people about their careers, you’ll learn very quickly that many have intense work ethics. Autistic people are reported to be 90% - 140% more productive when starting a new job. This productivity outpaced employees who had been there for 5 - 10 years (10). While this may seem like a bonus for employers, Autistic people will tell you that this statistic comes from intense fear that social friction will cost them their jobs. These fears are justified. Autistic people face social discrimination specific to autism (7). These social biases result in uneven demands of effort and labor in social settings, where Autistic people perform all accommodation efforts and non-Autistic people do little, if any.
In fact, these uneven social demands have been repeatedly shown to be the biggest barrier to successful employment for Autistic people (14). While studying Autistic employment experiences, Baldwin, Costley, and Warren found that, “despite their capacity and willingness to work, [Autistic people] face significant disadvantages in the labour market and a lack of understanding and support in employment settings” (16). And Müller et al. found that hard skills and work ethic weren’t enough for Autistic people to overcome social barriers in their employment (14).
Autistic people often struggle to get hired in the first place and spend an average of 12 months looking for work (11). In contrast, the U.S. Bureau of Labor reports that unemployed people in general spent an average of 22.4 weeks to find employment (38).
Despite strong early performances, they keep their jobs for an average of 24 months (11). This is half the U.S. average job retention rate, which is 49 months (33). This pattern could indicate 2 possibilities:
An increased rate of burnout among Autistic working adults.
That social bias is a significant barrier to successful employment among Autistic people (more on this later).
The tenacity required to look for work for 12 months (on average) is not a burden non-autistic people bear. Autistic people are required to outwork their peers, and they aren’t allowed to keep their jobs for 5-10 years.
Employers of Autistic people would be better prepared for mutual cooperation if they were made aware of these issues. Education on this topic should examine the relationship between work ethic, social bias, and burnout. It will demystify a lot of behavior.
The Hidden Costs of Autism Over a Lifetime
Survival is tied closely to stable employment, therefore a holistic view of Autistic living is necessary. Conditions in and out of the workplace significantly impact each other and these costs are key to understanding some of that interconnectedness.
From 1990 - 2019, there were a total of $7 trillion in social costs for Autistic folks in the U.S. (25). This amounts to about $3.6 million in social costs over a single lifetime for an Autistic person (25). These costs include increased medical and psychiatric expenses as well as lost wages and productivity. The measure also considers costs associated with therapy, education, accommodations, and respite care.
Lifetime medical costs for Autistic people are up to six times as high as the national average (24). Medication costs were also higher, especially for gastro-intestinal needs and for psychiatric medication. Autistic folks had on average 40% more subscriptions than non-Autistic peers (24). These costs increased steadily over the Autistic person’s lifetime.
Additionally, people with “high functioning”* autism were at least four times more likely to need inpatient psychiatric services (24). There are many co-occurring conditions common to autism. For example, Autistic folks have higher rates of trauma and PTSD, perhaps with worse symptoms than their non-Autistic peers (27). Research indicates that there is a cumulative effect for trauma in Autistic groups, which means that they could be more susceptible to developing PTSD (27).
This is important, because burnout is often reported as being very traumatic, as well as being induced by chronic stress and social trauma. Self-reporting indicates that burnout plays a significant role in every working Autistic person’s life (28).
Having access to lifelong support in their daily lives has been shown to increase Autistic wellness, both physically and mentally. Yet the very definition of “high functioning”* insinuates that a lack of support is needed. In practice, little, if any, support exists for many Autistic adults.
Despite these costs outpacing the national average in several ways, these expenses represent less than 5% of all costs associated with autism (24). 58% of all social costs will come from a “loss of productivity” (25). This includes lost wages from multiple sources:
Struggling to find anything other than low paying jobs
Chronic unemployment
Periods of time when they are unable to work (i.e. due to burnout)
Long stretches of time spent looking for work
Lost wages due to caretaking for other Autistic individuals
Issues like burnout and discrimination increase these “loss of productivity” costs for many reasons. Symptoms of burnout can last for months increasing the amount of time between jobs. Social biases contribute to lost productivity by increasing the chronic stress the Autistic person experiences at work and by increasing the likelihood of termination.
The Costs of Late-Diagnosis and the Privilege of a Diagnosis
When studying the economic costs of autism, Rogge and Janssen said, “[Anecdotal] evidence obtained from families or individuals with ASD shows that the diagnosis process can be a real struggle, with, among other things, long waiting lists and high upfront costs.” (24).
In the United States, a diagnosis can cost as much as $2,750 (24).
Adulthood diagnosis is a common experience for Autistic people. Lack of professional awareness, long waits, and high costs can delay a diagnosis for years, or prevent one entirely. Autistic people who make it into adulthood without a diagnosis often don’t know about their neurology, which means that they don’t have information about their needs. Issues like Autistic masking, burnout, and PTSD will have run amok in their lives. They are less empowered to care for or advocate for themselves, and they won’t have access to accommodations and protections under the laws like the ADA (30).
A diagnosis is one small piece of an Autistic person’s lived experience, yet it’s clear that autism-specific hidden costs spring up and balloon very quickly from daily life.
Autism Employment Trends
Now that we’ve given an overview of the Autistic worker, let’s look at employment trends for Autistic folks around the world. Extremely high unemployment rates, persistent under-employment, and disproportionately low wages are common knowledge in the Autistic community. Research not only supports these claims, but demonstrates that this issue is specific to autism and transcends both time and location.
Autistic unemployment trends are an intergenerational, international problem.
Autism Employment Rates
Employment rates have been disproportionately low for Autistic people around the world for decades (15). In fact, research has shown that Autistic people are the least employed disabled group (32). The chart below demonstrates employment rates among disabled groups in the UK in 2020 (3).
It can often be hard for Autistic people to find inclusion into traditional work environments to begin with. Instead, many Autistic people find themselves “being served in either facility-based work or community-based nonwork programs” (15). Programs like these have been shown to lower quality of life by not providing adequate stimulation, purpose, independence, or social belonging (29).
Yet issues like social isolation are reported, even among Autistic people who gain traditional employment (34). Discrimination and a lack of support follow Autistic people into the workplace, despite many protections put in place to help. Again, data indicates that these oversights are specific to the presence of autism (7).
In the U.S., social isolation for Autistic people starts in primary school and continues into adulthood. Autistic adults are an overlooked population. It’s assumed that those who need support can’t work and those who can work don’t need support.
But research doesn’t support this conclusion. Rather, as Roux et al. stated in their National Autism Indicators Report on Vocational Rehab, “their need for help does not go away in adulthood and many will have great difficulty finding and keeping employment” (26).
Additionally, the Department of Labor promotes the Employment First philosophy, which is, “centered on the premise that all individuals, including those individuals with the most significant disabilities, are capable of full participation in Competitive Integrated Employment (CIE) and community life”(31).
Despite this philosophy -- and several laws protecting disabled folks at work -- un and under-employment plague the Autistic community. Loopholes remain in labor laws that allow denial of accommodations. Supports remain ineffective and hard to access. Additionally, research shows that the more support an Autistic person receives, the lower their wages are (see the Vocational Rehabilitation section). Medical, corporate, and government systems all deny Autistic people access to competitive integrated employment.
To demonstrate this, let’s break down some statistics for different aspects of Autistic employment.
Autism Employment Rates by Study
The collection of statistics on autism employment rates paint a grim picture of Autistic employment across time and culture:
Research conducted in the 50’s found that only 3 of 63 participants (5%) found jobs when they entered adulthood (18)
Research from 1973 found that 11 of 96 adults (11%) had jobs in their 20’s and 30’s (18)
1974 study followed 22 adolescents and found that 1 (5%) got a job after completing school (18)
Research in 2002 showed that 15% of Autistic people found a job their first year out of high school. As participants aged, this rate went up to 63%. All other disabled groups saw their employment rates raise from 54% in the first year to 91% over the course of the study (18)
A study published in 2011 found that 37% of the participants were employed at the time of the interview (11)
A study in 2012 reported a 25% employment rate (13)
Another 2012 study found that 60% of their participants found employment (15)
Research in 2017 found that 61% of their participants were employed at the end of their study. Nearly 1/3 of the 39% not employed hadn’t been able to find a single job (5)
Other worldwide outcomes:
Japan (1992) 20% employment rate (18)
Canada (2008) 56% employment rate (18)
UK (2009) 18% employment rate (18)
UK (2020) 31% employment rate (3)
UK (2021) 39% employment rate (3)
Within the community, employment rates improved slightly with “higher functioning”* subsets of Autistic participants, but wages, hours, and job advancement did not (18).
Below is a graph that contrasts the autistic unemployment rate with the national unemployment rates for each country represented in this article. National unemployment rates match the year each respective study was completed.
This long standing pattern of unemployment transcends both space and time and likely reflects a few factors:
The disabling nature of autism
The marginalization of Autistic individuals
The compounding injury of sustained poverty, repeated turnover, trauma, and burnout
More research is needed into the causation of these consistently poor outcomes, but systemic failures are surely a major contributing factor. This will be discussed and supported with further research later in the article.
Autistic Adults and Underemployment
Underemployment is another common status for working Autistic adults. There are several things that constitute underemployment (5):
Involuntarily works less than full time
Works full time without earning a living wage
Job doesn’t utilize the person’s skillset
Job provides less status because of background
As we work through the data on hours and wages, you’ll see another recurring pattern: Autistic people get stuck in entry-level, low paying jobs, even with higher education degrees (5). In fact, many Autistic people report that “menial jobs” were the only type of job available to them (12).
Research backs these reports up. Studies have shown that many aren’t able to find jobs that match their qualifications (12). Even those with higher education degrees worked low paying, entry-level, part-time jobs (18). One study reported that 45% of employed participants were overqualified for their jobs (16).
Average Hours Worked by Autistic Adults
The majority of working Autistic people work part-time. Studies have shown that Autistic people work an average of 23 to 24.1 hours per week (15, 18). Here is a breakdown of a few individual stats on part-time status and hours worked among Autistic populations:
A 2008 study found that most of their participants worked, or volunteered, an average of 5 hours a week (18).
A 2011 study followed 66 participants for 10 years and found that none worked full-time. Only 6% had “competitive jobs” (18)
A 2012 study found that only 25% of the working participants worked more than 30 hours/week (15)
A 2016 study into Vocational Rehabilitation outcomes for Autistic folks found that 80% of those employed worked-part time (26)
This report notes that the U.S. average for part-time workers is 19%
A 2017 study found that 46% of those employed worked part-time (5)
This research is also supported by Vocational Rehabilitation tracking systems. Data from these systems note that Autistic folks routinely work fewer hours and earn lower wages than other disabled groups (18, 26).
Many Autistic people report that part-time work is an accommodation that allows them to maintain employment. However, research into the hidden work of autism is minimal. Where part-time effort is assumed, intense emotional labor seems to be taking place. Autistic people report needing to develop a lot of soft skills that most workplaces don’t consider when measuring productivity. Masking (36), extra communication, self-regulation, conflict management, navigating microaggressions, and keeping their disability hidden are all examples of hidden labor that is required from Autistic people.
It’s possible that Autistic labor -- including the number of hours being invested in said labor -- is being overlooked. By measuring productivity solely based on non-disabled standards, Autistic efforts are easily dismissed as inefficient (9). This is despite the fact that research indicates that Autistic people are more productive than their peers (10).
It’s also possible that Autistic people prefer part-time hours because those are their only “productive” hours, despite the fact that there’s no research that indicates full-time workers are productive for all 40 hours (43). This possibility denotes a need for advocacy support in social settings such as workplaces.
How much money do Autistic people make?
The trends among pay rates for Autistic people are perhaps the most egregious part of the equation. Because not only are they routinely low, they are lower than others who do the same jobs. Research indicates that hourly wages are lower because autism is present. Let’s break that down a little by looking at average wages found in different studies into Autistic employment trends:
One study found Autistic adults made an average of $7.91 per hour (in 2012) and that only 25% made more than $8.33 per hour (15)
Another found that their participants made an average of $9.20 per hour (11).
A study in 2004 followed 68 Autistic adults for 7 to 29 years and found that only 2 had worked for full salary (18).
One study noted that it couldn’t identify factors that impacted hourly wage. The authors suggested that it was because there was so little variation from the mean hourly wage (15).
Could there be so little variation because autism is the factor?
Data from Voc Rehab supports this possibility. Wage statistics from Voc Rehab programs across the U.S. show that the few supports that do exist for Autistic adults result in even lower hourly wages (18). Let’s look at these stats from Voc Rehab tracking to compare average wages between Autistic people and their peers:
Autistic people worked an average of 22-26 hours/wk, and brought home an average of $175-$216/wk (26)
All other participants in Voc Rehab worked between 29-32 hours/wk, and brought home between $271-$322/wk (26)
In reviewing Voc Rehab efficacy, data demonstrated that using Vocational Rehabilitation services results in higher employment but consistently lower wages (26). Autistic participants made less money than all other disabled groups participating in the same program (26).
In contrast to all of this data, average wages in the U.S. are as follows:
Depending on the industry, hourly pay averages between $20.93 and $49.52 (35)
Average weekly pay averaged between $535.18 and $2,089.92 (35)
While more research is needed, there is a consistent pattern of Autistic people making significantly lower hourly wages than their peers. There is a clear link between the specific condition and below-poverty wages across the board. It would appear that current legislation that seeks to protect disabled people is lacking in wage protections for Autistic folks.
When compared to U.S. national averages, it would seem that no disabled group is gaining competitive compensation from Vocational Rehabilitation programs.
Autistic Employee Retention Rates
Most of the research into Autistic employment trends defines successful employment in one of two very limited ways:
Are they employed on a specific date? (i.e. the time of interview or the end of the study)
Have they been employed for 90 days?
The majority of the studies reviewed for this article relied on the first definition to determine employment. Vocational Rehabilitation -- and related research -- used the second. Very few measured employment success past the initial 90 days.
Even with these limited definitions of employment success, the statistics look grim.
Research indicates that Autistic people hold a job for an average of 24 months (11). This same study found that Autistic people had an average of 3 jobs over the 8 year study and spent an average of 12 months looking for work (11). A different report found that participants averaged 4-5 jobs over the 5 year study (5). In contrast, the Department of Labor reports that American workers keep their job for an average of 4.1 years (49 months) (33).
Job instability was common, even among the currently employed (5). Ohl et al. reported that 35% of their participants who were unemployed had either quit their jobs or were fired (5). Newman et al. found that 31% of those who were unemployed in their study were either fired or let go in some way (19% were laid off, 12% were fired) (11). Another 45% of this group were in temporary positions that had ended (11). 76% of the unemployed Autistic people in this study had lost their job in some way (11).
Perhaps most disturbing were the 16% of unemployed Autistic people who were simply no longer able to keep working (5). Issues like chronic stress, and burnout point to the possibility that adverse work conditions might lead to increased disability in autistic people.
Miscellaneous
Here are a few miscellaneous statistics about Autistic employment that are noteworthy.
Autistic Adults with Job-Related Benefits
Research indicates that Autistic people do not have access to many of the benefits that come with employment. For example, only 30% of employed Autistics had health insurance and only 27% had any retirement benefits (11).
High rates of unemployment, majority part-time hours, low wages, and high rates of temporary and/or freelance work are likely all contributing factors to these statistics.
Job Satisfaction
When surveyed, more than half of Autistic people reported an effort/reward imbalance (ERI) in their jobs (5). In fact, Ohl et al. noted that 62% of those unemployed at the end of their study reported high effort to low reward ERI Ratios (5).
Chronic work-related stress is characterized as high effort, low payoff (19), so it’s noteworthy that the majority of unemployed Autistic folks reported chronic stress. Research also indicates that lower effort and higher reward ERI ratios are associated with better health than those with inverse ERI ratios (5).
One probable source of this chronic work-related stress is social friction. In the next section, we’ll discuss how social issues contribute to the dire employment statistics found among Autistic people.
Autism Discrimination in the Workplace
“Social Deficits” in Autism
The overwhelming majority of research and clinical definitions of autism focus on “social deficits” as a core trait or disability. For example, the National Institute of Mental Health says that autism is characterized by, “ongoing social problems that include difficulty communicating and interacting with others” (4)
Autistic self-reporting -- and much of the research -- shows that social discrimination is just as ever-present as autism itself.
The Social Model of Disability: How Autistic People View Things
Autism is often treated as a temporary disability that can be cured or outgrown. Supports for Autistic adults are rare and temporary. This is known as the medical model of disability and is reflected in research that solely advocates for teaching social skills to help Autistic people overcome their deficits (44). Yet, most disabilities, such as autism, are lifelong and won't be cured. Rather, the social model of disability advocates for changes in environment to support the disability (44).
For Autistic people, this means providing environments that actively work to dismantle the social biases that lead to discrimination, marginalization, mobbing, and termination (7). This work starts with recognizing the hidden labor Autistic people already perform to maintain social harmony.
How Autistic People Accommodate Non-Autistic People in Social Settings
Social skills are something that every human must develop and even non-Autistic people have so-called deficits. Even so, Autistic people overwhelmingly report exerting tremendous effort to socialize “properly” (36).
One example of these efforts is Autistic masking, which is when a person hides aspects of their personality and/or disability in order to avoid harassment, marginalization, and discrimination (28). At work, Autistic people report using masking to avoid social conflict and termination (37). It requires an immense amount of energy to sustain, doesn’t work, and leads to physical and mental illness.
This is reflected by the data that suggests that 16% of unemployed Autistic people couldn’t work anymore (5). Remember, 62% of unemployed Autistic people report high stress, low reward working conditions (5) and Autistic people are known to be at a heightened risk for stress-related illness (27).
There’s ample research and anecdotal evidence showing the direct link between social conflict and stress-related disability in Autistic people. Research repeatedly claims that autism is characterized by social deficits, yet their own statistics overwhelmingly suggest that social discrimination is the biggest barrier to sustained employment (14) based solely on the presence of autism (7).
The Impacts of Workplace Discrimination on Autistic Employment
When studying social dynamics at work, researchers noted that Autistic behaviors were often misinterpreted, which lead to isolation (12). Social demands were cited as the biggest obstacle to job success (14) and a major reason for termination (12, 14). Communication breakdowns have also been cited as a major barrier to interview success (14).
The freeze-out of Autistic communication styles hinders hiring and retention for Autistic people, despite the Autistic’s best efforts. This is reflected both in high turnover rates among Autistic employees and in lengthy job search averages (11) that far outpace the national average in the U.S. (38).
Autistic people reported that social interactions were bigger difficulties at work than the jobs themselves (12). Chen et al. states that Autistic people “typically do not have difficulties with job tasks, [rather] deficits in social interaction are a major obstacle to their employment” (18). And Muller et al. found that hard skills and work ethic were not enough to overcome social barriers (14).
Social deficits? Or Social bias?
It wouldn’t represent the Autistic community well to assert that social difficulties weren’t part of Autistic experience.
However, the deficit approach to autism places the onus of communication success solely on Autistic shoulders, as evidenced by researchers' repeated suggestions that interpersonal skills be taught to Autistic folks (12). While these -- and many other soft skills -- are surely highly valued at work, this suggestion alone overlooks the obvious presence of discrimination in Autistic social lives.
Evidence does not support the notion that Autistic people can “behave” their way out of the effects of social discrimination (7, 12, 14, 18, 20, 34, 36, 37).
Sasson et al. found that Autistic people reported high social interest but experienced high rates of loneliness (7, 34). Said Dr. Noah Sasson, of the University of Texas at Dallas, "We tend to think of social difficulties in autism as an individual impairment. But social interaction is a two-way street, and their social challenges are often affected by the judgments and social decisions made by those around them” (34).
He also noted that Autistic people were able to tell when people were treating them poorly (34). This is supported by a report that found that managing social interactions created significant stress in Autistic people, which was reported to be another significant barrier to gaining employment (12).
The Many Forms of Workplace Discrimination
Despite all Autistic effort to overcome social friction, social stigma and bias were still limiting factors in their career building (20). Here are a few ways these stigmas and biases show up in the workplace:
Thin slice judgements (7) - Non-Autistic people judge Autistic people harshly based on split-second observations of autism-specific non-verbal cues. These negative judgements are “remarkably robust,” unchanged over time and exposure, and result in alienation of the Autistic person.
Ableism (9) - The systemic discrimination and systemic distrust against disabled people can be found at work in many ways, including micromanagement (9), underemployment (5), marginalization (29), and bullying or mobbing (8). Negative assumptions about the value of one’s job performance or the validity of one’s disability (9) plague Autistic people at work. For example, in one study, 73% of Autistic participants disclosed their disability and only 37% of those people received accommodations from their jobs (11).
Mobbing (8) - Mobbing is a form of group or systemic bullying that seeks to marginalize and exclude a person from a group or organization. This shows up at work in the form of denied accommodations, distrust, ableism, and more. The behaviors limit the targeted person in several ways:
Not allowing them to express themselves or explain their perspective
Decreasing access to social aspects of work (conversations, plans, trainings, gatherings, etc)
Attacking the target’s reputation (micromanaging, devaluing performance, gossiping, defaulting to distrust based on the target’s disability)
Diminishing the target’s quality of life at work (social exclusion, underemployment, imposing stress through workloads, creating financial damages)
Damaging the targeted person’s health through work-specific conditions (excessive exertion demands, high stress, threats of violence, actual violence)
Mobbing as a system protects any individual from accountability while enabling marginalizing behaviors. Here are a few examples of this in action:
Viewing accommodations as luxuries rather than necessities
Firing an Autistic person because they are a “bad fit” for a company after their health declines from working without accommodations.
Disregarding job performance and focusing on “social deficits” or other stereotypes of autism during evaluations
Teaching Autistic Communication to Non-Autistic People
According to the thin slice judgment research conducted by Sasson et al., social biases against Autistic people are pronounced and pervasive (7). But, social biases can be successfully challenged with “meaningful interactions.”
However, Sasson et al. note that Autistic folks get fewer of these opportunities (34).
Autistic people are marginalized by thin slice judgments, which robs them of chances to socialize and/or have meaningful interactions with non-Autistic folks (7). Then, they are characterized as having deficits in social development (4).
Factors in Succuss for Autistic Employment
Plenty of research agrees with Sasson et al.. Adjusting social expectations and cooperative management were two major factors found in employment success for Autistic folks (29). It’s unfair to assume Autistic individuals can facilitate these changes alone. There are many forms of support that can improve outcomes in Autistic employment:
Employee Resource Groups can assist with outreach, education, and mediation, reducing marginalization and increasing retention (6).
Job placement services, such as Vocational Rehabilitation, can improve at least short-term employment outcomes (26) by 4 times (15).
Academic support during higher education can increase graduation rates (15) and job success (5).
On-the-job support will increase job retention and success (15)
Off-hours, at home support increases job attendance, performance, and retention (5, 12, 24)
To get a better idea of what works and why, let’s look at the statistics and research behind specific interventions. We’ll discuss both the benefits and limitations of each intervention as outlined by the research.
Job Preparation and Placement Services
There’s very little support for Autistic people as they transition into adulthood, and the supports that exist become much harder to attain (39). According to Anne Roux, of the Drexel University Life Course Outcomes Research Project, 70% of families report increased difficulty in attaining supports as their children reach adulthood. And 28% of Autistic young adults who qualify for services report receiving no support at all (39). However, Roux notes that in order to qualify for most adult services, an Autistic person needs to have an intellectual disability (39). This means that Autistic people without intellectual disabilities and/or without the proper diagnoses are left with next to no support in adulthood.
However, research shows that services that help with job preparation and job placement improve Autistic employment statistics. Let’s look at some specific supports that can help Autistic people find work, both fresh out of high school and later in their careers.
College Accommodations for Autism
Multiple studies have found that providing accommodations for Autistic students improved graduation rates (20). In fact, those with college support for autism were 14 times more likely to graduate than those without (15).
Where Academic Support Falls Short
These supports were far from guaranteed, though. One study found that 34% of Autistic college students were given some form of support with their classroom (22), while another study found that only 10% had access to scholastic support (15).
Graduation rates varied between studies, with the highest being 55% (5). One study found that 17% graduated (22) while another found that 4.3% attained a degree of some kind (15). It’s noteworthy that the participants in the study with the highest completion rate also reported high degrees of family support during their early adulthood.
The statistics are clear that access to support improves not only access to advanced education, but the chance to succeed.
Disclosing Autism to Schools and Employers
Disclosure increases the chance of success at work and school because it gives chances for accommodations to occur. However, these benefits were not guaranteed and came with risks of increased discrimination and withheld opportunities. Autistic people who disclosed their autism were 3x more likely to be employed, but disclosure came with an increased risk of being not hired or fired (5). Here are a couple statistics about the impact of disclosure on Autistic employment:
Ohl et al. found that twice as many employed Autistics disclosed to their employers as those who were unemployed (5).
Newman et al. found that, while 73% disclosed their autism, only 37% received accommodations from employers (11).
Because education is listed as a factor in job success (5), it should be noted that these disclosure patterns are echoed in post-secondary education environments. The National Longitudinal Transition Study reported that 62% of students disclosed their autism to their school, but only 34% were given help with school work (22).
The burden of disclosure on Autistic people
Coming out as Autistic is not easy. Autistic people fear the repercussions because they’ve experienced them already. Forcing an Autistic person to out themselves creates many extra burdens that non-Autistic peers don’t shoulder.
First, diagnosis is a privilege. As discussed before, access to a diagnosis isn’t guaranteed due to stigmatized beliefs held by medical professionals, long wait times, and high costs (24).
Disclosure also comes with the very real threat of stigma, discrimination, and backlash (17). If social deficits are truly a part of autism, then the task of identifying when to disclose, and to whom, is a burden on the “very nature of this disability” (17). This issue is compounded by a lack of diagnosis, as there are then no legal protections from these risks, but the fallout will remain.
Accommodations for Autism
As with most disabilities, accommodating autism will be absolutely vital to an Autistic person’s success at work and in daily life. Common accommodations for Autistic people include (23):
Small groups
Accessible language
Advanced notice
Clear instructions
Predictable expectations
Decompression room/time
Sensory accommodations
Social accommodations
As many Autistic adults will attest, denied accommodations are common and serve to marginalize them within the company (8). One study found that 73% of their participants disclosed their autism, but only 37% received accommodations (11). You can see similar results in disclosure/accommodation receipt in higher education as well.
Denial of accommodations creates significant systemic barriers to employment success for Autistic people.
The burden of disclosure and accommodation seeking before or during employment requires one person to not only navigate the application process, but perfect their self-advocacy as a member of a marginalized group.
The Almost Non-Existent Costs of Accommodating Autism
Most of the solutions to this issue involve a shifting of ideas, perspectives, and managerial approaches. Jacob et al. advises management to consider skillbuilding towards overcoming conversational snags with Autistic folks, communicating clarifying information, developing awareness of sensory needs and reactivity, flexibility in social rule enforcement and social expectations, flexibility to personalize job placement that matches strengths and abilities (29). Examples of these suggestions in action could include:
Redefining jobs away from unsupported customer facing roles
Building knowledge base articles for accessibility during training
Providing written instructions
Training management on Autistic communication styles
Non-reaction during self-regulation activities, such as wearing headphones or tinted lenses
Providing low-sensory zones for self-regulation
Mentorship and one-on-one communication
Active trust-building efforts
Ensuring more than one Autistic person works within your organization
Most of the costs associated with these adjustments are in labor and training. Modifying sensory spaces involves small equipment costs such as noise machines and dimmer switches. Higher end costs include creating Employee Resource Groups as part of your DEI infrastructure. However, these are costs that are not recurring for every Autistic employee. Investing in ERGs ensures that the company can increase retention and meet their goals (6). The presence of many of these cultural shifts also reduces the burden on Autistic people to prove a diagnosis and/or disclose their disability.
In the Autistic Worker section of this article, we demonstrated that Autistic people tend to have excellent work ethics (10), tend to be skilled at their jobs (10, 12, 14, 16), and tend to be interested in social inclusion (7). By incorporating changes in management’s knowledge and in company practice, an environment of mutual support is created. Supporting Autistic people allows them the space to thrive in their jobs. As Jacob et al. notes, mutual support creates the best environment (29).
This is a form of community support that can be put in place to aid in job placement and retention. In our next section, we’ll discuss one of the most influential job placement services available to those in the United States: Vocational Rehabilitation.
Vocational Rehabilitation
Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) is a job preparation and placement service offered at the state level to disabled people in the United States. The services offered through VR differ from state to state, but VR is the biggest, most organized resource and is likely the best example available of job placement services that translate to success.
One reason VR is so helpful is the data it keeps across the nation. Through those statistics, we can see both the strengths and weaknesses of VR as it applies directly to Autistic employment outcomes.
Strengths of Vocational Rehabilitation for autism
As mentioned before, research has shown that job placement services increase Autistic employment rates by 4 times (15) and that on-the-job support significantly improved outcomes after hire (12). Vocational Rehabilitation offers both of these services to varying degrees, depending on the state. Their data shows that 60% of Autistic people who attended VR were employed when they exited the program (26).
If diagnosed with a disability, it is easy to join VR and receive access to many supports (40):
Career counseling
Aptitude and Interest tests
Vocational Training
Resume and Interview workshops/counseling
Some community outreach and networking support
Supported employment (41)
Having access to VR helps Autistic people navigate social ambiguity, executive dysfunction, transitions, skill development, career development, social integration, and general independence.
Weaknesses in Vocational Rehabilitation
Unfortunately, Vocational Rehabilitation has a reputation for being woefully unprepared to navigate Autistic (and other neurodivergent) needs (12). There are a number of ways in which improvements to the program could improve Autistic employment outcomes. However, VR’s own data demonstrates that there are many ways that participating in these programs might actually harm Autistic employees.
Before we dig into specifics, here are a few examples of limitations in VR:
Services and outcomes varied wildly between states (26)
Stated goals of support programs include moving people away from “reliance on entitlement programs,” (40) forcing a degree of self-reliance that places another burden on the very nature of Autistic disability
VR defines successful employment as retention for 90 days (26), meaning success rates only reflect short-term Autistic experiences
Access to the program remained low, despite its noted benefits (15)
Services are not tailored to Autistic or neurodivergent needs (15)
The reported inadequacy of Voc Rehab support goes back to at least 2002 (12). One example is VR’s tendency to assume successful employment after 90 days of retention with a cap of 180 days for services (26). This practice also doesn’t consider the statistically high turnover rates (11) or the Autistic person’s lifelong need for support (39).
Wages for Autistic workers in Voc Rehab are extremely low
Autistic people who worked through VR earned below poverty-level wages. 80% of those employed through VR services worked part-time with an average weekly income of $160 (26).
Supported employment resulted in even lower pay (26).
Below is a table that shows how wage outcomes were even worse for those who received on-the-job support as part of their Vocational Rehabilitation.
Part-time Wages
90% of Autistics with supported employment worked part-time and with median weekly earnings of $145 per week (26).
76% of Autistics without supported employment worked part-time with median wages of $170 per week (26).
Full-time Wages
Only 7% of Autistic people with supported employment worked full-time and brought in a median wage of $360 per week (26)
19% of Autistics without supported employment worked full-time and made a median wage of $388 per week (26)
National Averages
US average for part-time workers 19% (26)
Median weekly earnings for full-time employee in US is $791 (35)
Median weekly earnings for part-time employees in the U.S. are $340 (42)
As you can see, the higher the degree of support, the lower the wages Autistic people receive. Not only that, but the best wage outcomes among Autistic people ($388/week) were only slightly higher than lowest wages among the general population ($340/week).
Services Offered and Employment Outcomes Varied by State
Despite the fact that Vocational Rehabilitation has been found to improve employment outcomes, services aren’t widely available. One study found that only 48% of their participants were given access to VR services (15). This same study noted that many Voc Rehab counselors weren’t properly trained in working with Autism and other neurodivergence folks (15). This lack of training, and the variations in what types of services are even offered, resulted in uneven outcomes.
How can a career plan be customized to a disability that no one in Voc Rehab knows anything about?
Here are a few statistics to help demonstrate the range of services and outcomes:
Services
100% of Autistic participants in Iowa received on-the-job support, while 11% in Maine did, 8 states didn’t offer on-the-job support to any Autistic folks (26, pg 67)
Outcomes
The rate of Autistic folks who left VR employed ranged from 79% in Alabama and S. Dakota to 34% in Florida. (26)
Median hourly wage across states ranged from $7.45 to $9.80 (26)
Autistics made significantly less than the median rate for the state in every single state, the difference going as high as $22.95/hr (26).
No Autistic person in Voc Rehab made $10/hour or more. No state recorded a median income of less than $13/hour.
So, while Vocational Rehabilitation can certainly improve employment outcomes for Autistic people, it doesn’t appear to help protect against the overall trends of underemployment, or severely low wages. Nor does it seem prepared to account for the fact that discrimination specific to autism is a factor in all of these issues.
To improve these shortcomings, Migliore et al. suggests that Voc Rehab, “appraises the effectiveness of service providers who subcontract with VR, and the education and qualifications of the support staff who assist job seekers” (15). Equipping VR counselors with better understanding about autism, Autistic experiences, and social discrimination will certainly help. Other approaches, such as reforming and/ or standardizing services, increasing access to said services, and tailoring services to actual Autistic needs will also improve Autistic employment outcomes.
A Full picture of Autistic Support Needs
Autism persists across one’s entire lifetime and its impact on someone’s career is only part of the picture. Autistic employment statistics suggest that support both on and off the clock are essential to long term career success and financial stability (12). Ironically, independent living for Autistic people is most successful with a stable network of support for various areas of their lives.
Legislative Support for Autistic Adults
The obvious and longstanding discrimination against Autistic people has been clearly demonstrated in the research and within this article. The lack of awareness about autism has created policy gaps that serve to marginalize and harm Autistic people (i.e. default policies dictating that social supports should be short-term). These policy gaps perpetuate several ruthless cycles:
Inescapable poverty
Social isolation
Career suppression
Lack of meaningful stimulation
Severe and escalating mental and physical health complications
An inability to thrive regardless of personal effort or character
Labor laws are needed worldwide that acknowledge the ongoing systemic oppression of specifically Autistic people.
Educational Support for Autistic Adults
Education has been shown by some research to be one of the biggest predictors of career success for Autistic adults (5). Supported education in childhood is known to be effective (39), but access to these supports drops significantly for post-secondary education. As few as 1 in 10 Autistic adults had access to support services in post-secondary education (15) despite the fact research also shows these supports increase graduation rates (20).
Job placement and Skill development support for Autistic Adults
Support in finding and maintaining a job increased success for Autistic adults, but access to support at any point is low, which indicates that systemic barriers (stigmas/lack of awareness for neurodivergence in employment programs) exist (5) that are specific to autism (7).
Job placement should include individual education about autism and how Autistic needs impact working life. Understanding autism is crucial to an Autistic person’s ability to participate in the workforce at all, let alone succeed (20).
Supports for skill building and job placement should also include the following:
Navigating gaining access to vocational training and/or college admissions
Financial planning
Business/Entrepreneurial training
Interpersonal skills training
Modern resume and interview support
Personality and Interest Assessments
Aid with functional aspects of job searching, housing, equipment, transportation, clothing, etc.
Executive dysfunction is a significant stressor for Autistic people (12) and is often a persistent, core part of their disability. Therefore, ongoing support that helps with setting appointments, navigating paperwork, or following admissions or on-boarding processes is necessary.
On-the-job support for Autistic Employees
On-the-job support helps improve outcomes by supporting Autistic people with training, education, and job placement (12, 15).
Supported employment encourages social integration, faster placement in compatible positions, and longer retention rates (41). Resources like Employee Resource Groups can streamline inclusion efforts (6). But, supported employment for Autistic adults must also include long-term support and protections against social stigmas (7), mobbing (8), and other forms of ableism (9).
Other essential elements to on-the-job support include:
Accommodations for Autistic-specific needs (23)
Career/skill development support
Mentorship
Living wages, even for part-time work
Assistance with executive function heavy tasks
Awareness and accommodation of co-occurring disabilities
Ongoing awareness and communication training for management
Easing disclosure, and other self-advocacy, burdens (7, 17)
Off-hours Support for Autistic Adults
One factor that is less discussed, but will significantly improve autism employment statistics, is a system of support outside of the workplace. Family support was another major predictor for Autistic employment success (5). This is likely because family support helps with navigating financial hardships, employment gaps, and the executive functioning needed to find a job.
At-home support also improves work outcomes after a job has been found (12). This likely helps with executive dysfunction and eases the pressure of complete independent living. Executive dysfunction issues impact more than just work life and one’s ability to navigate their homelife will protect their job performance over time (12).
Traditional aspects of off-hours support, such as access to medical and psychiatric care, are important because these costs are much higher for Autistic populations (24). Autistic masking and burnout are major factors for these increased health complications (21). Autistic adults have significantly reduced access to healthcare and other benefits due to the majority maintaining part-time hours and due to the drastically low wages among this group (11).
Other forms of off-hour support that can help reduce burnout and increase job retention include:
Meal services
Subscriptions to mindfulness apps
Cleaning or laundry services
Financial fluency and planning services
Retirement plans
Legal protections informed by Autistic employment statistics that protect against discrimination, underemployment, and wage suppression based on the presence of autism
Specific interest social groups
Benefits packages for part-time or freelance employees
Social Support for Autistic People
Social discrimination is such a huge hindrance to Autistic employment success. Therefore, social support at home and at work are crucial to improving employment statistics for Autistic people (20).
It’s important that families, career counselors, employers, and the Autistic individual share the burdens of communication success. Don’t rely on Autistic people alone to make communication work (23).
Social supports can take many forms, including the following:
Neurodivergence-informed career counselors and academic advisors
Workplace, educational, and vocational advocates that support Autistic people in navigating nuanced social situations: conflicts, negotiations, disclosures, social expectations and hierarchies.
Ongoing help with social issues related to career development: resumes, cover letters, interviews, and knowing when to apply.
Hiring more than one Autistic person
Including Autistic people in management positions
Creating awareness and acceptance around Autistic communication and work styles
Creating events, exercises, and spaces that are inclusive and Autistic friendly
Extend Autistic accommodations (i.e. soft skill training, decompression environments, etc) to non-Autistic employees when possible
Actively look for ways to reduce marginalization of Autistic people
Educate non-Autistic people about autism, disabilities, ableism, discrimination, social bias, and more
Include Autistic perspectives in your decision making about autism and Autistic people
Be aware of and proactive in responding to discrimination: low wages, lack of advancement, mobbing, bullying, isolation, etc.
All of the data clearly shows that these social issues are working against every Autistic person regardless of the time or space they exist in. Non-autistic people are not forced to navigate these issues. The different areas of social friction outlined here prevent Autistic people from keeping employment no matter how skilled or hardworking they are. The burden to navigate these has fallen solely on Autistic shoulders, contributing to stress and hidden workloads that go unrecognized and unrewarded.
Conclusion
Autistic people deserve support without suffering penalties like marginalization, lower wages, or underemployment.
Autistic careers are significantly stunted over lifetimes due to autism specific discrimination that denies Autistic people access to support, acceptance, and inclusion. It is an undue burden on Autistic people to bear full responsibility in overcoming obstacles to stable employment.
While baseline employment rates have improved slightly over the last 7 decades, other conditions, such as wages and hours/week have not. All three aspects of employment remain behind other disabled groups, including those with learning disabilities, intellectual impairments, and speech difficulties.
Autistic people understanding their own needs was crucial to participation in the workforce. However, participation isn’t the same as success, and research indicates that success is hindered by factors outside of an Autistic individual's control.
For example, inclusive, supported employment benefits the economy, but the low average hours worked per week create a disincentive for employers from hiring and investing in Autistic employees. Rather, an employee’s preference for part-time work, especially resulting from a disability, is viewed as unreliable by employers. (29)
Mutual support creates the best environment. Autistic people should not bear the entire burden of career management, social success, and self-advocacy while also navigating a disability that directly impacts those specific areas. An environment that supports Autistic strengths while protecting against systemic discrimination makes collaboration possible.
Wage protection is desperately needed. There is abundant, clear evidence that there’s a form of wage discrimination specific to autistic people. Needing support shouldn’t result in below-poverty wages. That’s not competitive employment by any definition.
Lastly, autism employment statistics show that Autistic people are being robbed of the quality of their lives. Quality of life is improved by social integration, financial stability, access to healthcare and retirement plans, and meaningful stimulation. All of the data demonstrates clearly that autistic people, specifically, are being denied access to every one of those factors.
About me:
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.
Sources:
Autism Prevalence - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Outcomes for Disabled People in the UK 2020 - Office for National Statistics
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) - National Institute of Mental Health
Effective Employee Resource Groups are Key to Inclusion at Work - McKinsey & Company
Neurodiverse Applicants are Revolutionizing the Hiring Process - Quartz
National Longitudinal Transition Study 2011 - National Center for Special Education Research
Predictors for Work Participation in Autistic Adults - National Library of Medicine
Meeting the Vocational Support Needs of Autistic Adults - IOS Press
Trends in Employment for Autistic Adults - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
The Measurement of Effort-Reward Imbalance at Work - National Library of Medicine
Becoming a Member of the Workforce: Perceptions of Autistic Adults - National Library of Medicine
National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 - National Center for Special Education Research
Autistic Access Needs: Notes on Accessibility - Autistic Self Advocacy Network
The Economic Costs of Autism Spectrum Disorder - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
The Lifetime Social Costs of Autism - Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders
National Autism Indicators Report: Vocational Rehabilitation - Drexel University
Heightened Risk of PTSD in Autistic Adults - National Library of Medicine
The Costs and Benefits of Hiring Autistic Adults - National Library of Medicine
An overview of the Americans with Disabilities Act - ADA National Network
Outcomes for Disabled People in the UK 2020 - Office for National Statistics
Social Biases Contribute to Challenges for Autistic People - Science Daily
Average Hourly and Weekly Earnings of Employees in the U.S. - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Unemployed Persons by Duration of Unemployment - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Falling Off the Services Cliff - Anne Roux, Drexel University
Vocational Rehabilitation Services - D.C. Department on Disability Services
Supported Employment: Building Your Program - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Median Weekly Earnings of Part-time Wage and Salary Workers 2022 - U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
How Can the Social Model of Disability Change How Society Views Autism? - KQED
5 Awful Mistakes Not to Make When Hiring Autistic People
By: Vanessa Blanchard
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
Contents
How We Got Our Info: We Asked Autistic People
⚠️ Mistake #1: Not Understanding Autism
⚠️ Mistake #2: Not Accommodating Autistic Needs
⚠️ Mistake #3: Missing the Signs of Bias and Discrimination
⚠️ Mistake #4: Missing the Signs of Autistic Burnout
⚠️ Mistake #5: Missing the Signs of Autistic Masking
Bonus Mistake!: Not Building an Inclusion Loop
🧠 How can Spectroomz help
It’s very likely you’ve already interviewed and hired autistic folks.
Autism prevalence in the US is 2.2% (that’s over 5,500,000 autistic adults, or 1 autistic person of 44 people).
According to StackOverflow, that number almost doubles among tech employees.
Autism prevalence has also increased by 243% since 2000, so this pool of employees is only growing.
Research indicates that companies that hire inclusively make more profits than companies without diverse staff. There are many financial benefits to inclusive company cultures:
28% higher revenue over 4 years
Higher retention rates among staff
Better reputations among the community
More market potential
Better overall growth
But autistic people are seriously under-employed. A UK study found that 31% of autistic people were employed in 2020 and 39% were employed in 2021. Autistic people report issues such as burnout, sensory overload, and social friction as the main reasons they struggle to maintain employment.
So it’s important that companies know not just how to hire autistic employees, but also how to retain them.
How We Got Our Info: We Asked Autistic People
Spectroomz is working to help autistic people find stable employment. From our earliest days, Spectroomz has focused on input from autistic people to develop our approaches and strategies.
We've built a community of 12k members with 25k visitors to our site each month.
We've reached out to autistic, continuously, through our newsletter, surveys, discord, and other online conversations, asking questions like:
What kind of work do you want to do?
What accommodations do you need?
What helps/hinders your productivity?
What are your experiences with employment and asking for accommodations?
As the author, I've also researched employment, discrimination, and wage statistics and have found that many of our experiences are supported by what is measured in these studies.
Today, we aim to combine the statistics with quotes from real people who've been there.
All quotes are anonymous and pulled from our surveys and conversations.
This part of our outreach is geared towards teaching companies a few major mistakes that are commonly made that cost companies in turnover and lost profits. Everyone deserves to win in this one.
⚠️ Mistake 1: Not Understanding Autism
There's a huge disconnect between autistic people and the research and general understanding held about them in public spaces. For example, autism is reported to come with “social deficits.” But research into social dynamics between autistic and non-autistic people show that non-autistic people tend to automatically dislike autistic people based on nonverbal cues (see thin slice judgements in Mistake #3)
Another example comes straight from the CDC, which reports that boys are 4 times more likely than girls to be autistic. A quick check with the autistic community finds that it clearly is not true (a disparity in access to healthcare and a diagnostic bias contribute to these misconceptions).
The truth is, autism is a neurotype that comes with a wide range of personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and communication styles. While autism can be quite disabling, it isn’t a disease that can be cured or overcome. It’s our brain. Many within the community view autism as something closer to a culture, with a language or style of communication all our own.
🧠 So here’s what to do:
Learn a bit about autism. Seek out autistic employees and meet with them. Help them organize to provide information, training, and mediation between members of the team and management. This will increase positive outcomes from conflicts as it will help bridge the gaps between communication styles.
Form Employee Resource Groups to help protect and advocate for autistic-friendly environments and culture. They’ll also serve a vital role in the development of autistic talent after hiring.
⚠️ Mistake #2: Not Accommodating Autistic Needs
Autistic people commonly report that they don’t feel comfortable disclosing their autism to their employers. Many worry that coming out at autistic will mark them for a form of discrimination specific to autistic people where their needs are denied and they are pushed out of their position (see thin slice judgements in Mistake #3).
Here is a quote from one of our survey responses:
“I’ve been in this position since September 2021 and it’s the first position where I asked for accommodations. They were heavily scrutinized and denied. I’m not sure how much of that had to do with me not knowing how to advocate for myself vs my supervisor not understanding autism/adhd.”
What’s frustrating about this issue is that most of the accommodations autistic people seek are super easy to do. Many of them don’t even cost anything. In fact, research indicates that 59% of accommodations are free while the remaining ones cost an average of $500/person.
Here are the most common accommodation requests we had from our surveys:
Remote/hybrid work
Flexible hours
Part-time hours
Breaks/Decompression time
Interview questions in advance
Written communication
Clear Instructions
Sensory Accommodations
🧠 Now, here’s what to do to help:
Consider incorporating some or all of these changes into the work environment and/or work culture. You’ll find that more than just autistic people will benefit from having access to these accommodations, and you’ll take the burden off of autistic folks to disclose (while also encouraging them to feel safe to do so).
⚠️ Mistake #3: Missing the Signs of Bias and Discrimination
Autistic people face a great deal of marginalization in society, and this is reflected in their work experiences. Below are some specific examples, complete with links to the studies that measured and defined them:
Thin Slice Judgements - This report covered three studies that all found a tendency for non-autistic people to judge autistic people negatively based on non-verbal cues (tone, gestures, expressions, etc). These negative judgments were pervasive and consistently resulted in the non-autistic person creating distance from the autistic person. However, the report also found that informing non-autistic people of this bias helped decrease its pervasiveness.
Mobbing - Mobbing is a form of group bullying that involves marginalization of an individual within an organization. This can take the form of policies that don’t allow accommodations, or a group of people who enable a single aggressor through silence (and everything in between). Mobbing has been found in schools, employment, healthcare, and more.
Ableism - Common forms of workplace ableism include
Assumptions that the person is faking (see distrust)
Pressure to overcome the disability
Measuring performance against non-disabled people
Assuming that a disability is fixed (as in the same every day) rather than variable. For example, assuming a person either always or never needs an accessibility aid.
Distrust - The graphic to the right shows the definitions of four types of distrust often applied to autistic (and other disabled) people. One common way you see this reflected at work is through the scrutiny and denial of accommodation requests.
One of the more frustrating aspects of this topic is how easy it is to accidentally operate with one of these biases. Even the most well-meaning of us might instinctively distrust an autistic person based on non-verbal misunderstandings. Or they might mistake a very valid accommodation need (such as part-time hours) as a lack of commitment to a role.
🧠 So what should you do?
Like we said before, research shows that knowing about a bias reduces its occurrence. So, the first step is to learn some of the signs of bias. This is an area where Spectroomz’s outreach into the community can really help.
Watch out for statements like this, which show the impacts that systemic distrust have on autistic people’s confidence and self-trust:
“I've never had my accommodations taken into consideration so it all sounds like too much to ask”
Someone saying this to you could mean that they’re putting a bit of trust in you. Someone saying this about you might indicate room for adjustment to your culture and/or hiring practices. Other warning signs of workplace discrimination to look for:
You don’t know if you have any autistic people on staff
An autistic person becomes isolated or separates from an individual or group (either gradually or suddenly)
Sudden emotional outbursts and/or increased absences
The autistic person is withdrawn and overworking
Their performance/productivity suddenly tanks
Repeated complaints about a problem that doesn’t seem to be getting fixed
They don’t develop their skills or advance within the company
We’re all human, so expect issues to arise. Employee Resource Groups can help significantly with this, both in identifying the problem and in supporting compassionate mediation.
Diagnosis is a Privilege
Many autistic people don't find out about their neurology until adulthood. It's probable that you've hired and worked with autistic people who didn't know themselves that they were autistic.
There many reasons a person may not be diagnosed:
It can be very expensive
There are long wait times for assessments (sometimes years)
Medical professionals use biased, inaccurate research to screen for autism
A diagnosis comes with few supports and many stigmas
Be prepared to encounter undiagnosed autistic people. Offer them the same accommodations you would offer someone with paperwork. Their autism is real, and it's kind to acknowledge that.
Remember, discrimination occurs even if no one knows that the person is autistic. Many who find out in adulthood express relief to finally understand why these social dynamics occur.
Please remember that autism exists without a diagnosis.
⚠️ Mistake #4: Missing the Signs of Autistic Burnout
As I mentioned before, burnout is one of the main reasons that autistic people struggle to maintain employment. It’s been reported that new autistic hires can be up to 140% more productive than employees with five to ten years with the company.
Yet, our surveys revealed a shocking number of responses where people described “pushing through” or “pushing past” things like fatigue, pain, stress, and anxiety. One person described their work ethic as “pushing myself past what I could handle.” Overworking is a common form of people pleasing in the autistic community. We’re trying to have enough value that we can hold the thin-slice judgements at bay. This is a form of autistic masking that is exhausting and damaging to our mental health.
This hyper-productive beginning could actually be the earliest sign of a pending burnout.
For autistic people, burnout means they are so depleted of energy that their executive dysfunction takes over. They physically cannot go into work anymore. It becomes difficult in these times to leave bed, get dressed, eat, shower, and emotionally regulate. It's extreme fatigue coupled with severe brain fog. It can take months to recover from.
🧠 How can you help?
Burnouts can be avoided by noticing early signs and intervening by making adjustments to workflow that allows for more sustainable routines. For example, encouraging access to flexible hours, vacations, breaks, and meditation apps could give autistic employees the freedom to rest and regulate without disrupting productivity in the long run.
Here are a few signs that an autistic person might be heading for a burnout:
Increases in anxiety and stress
Emotional outburst such as crying, panic attacks, or meltdowns
Decreases in productivity and attendance (can happen gradually or all at once)
Mistakes and avoidant behaviors become more common
The person withdraws or isolates
Self-care is suffering
Research shows that in the first 8 years of adulthood, autistics have an average of 3 jobs that they keep for an average of 24 months. We’re producing at 140% at first, but the majority of us aren’t making it to year five or ten. However, a culture that values work/life balance will see longer retention rates among autistic employees as burnout rates decrease.
⚠️ Mistake #5: Missing the Signs of Autistic Masking
Say you’re in the grocery store, and you’re in a bad mood. You know it’s not the cashier’s fault, so you hide your mood and force politeness. That’s a form of masking. However, for autistic folks, it’s different. Because autistic people are masking to avoid those thin slice judgements we keep talking about (we cannot stress its pervasiveness enough).
For autistic people, masking includes suppressing our thoughts, views, and feelings. It means suppressing our physical and emotional pain. We have to try to adjust everything about ourselves and our communication, down to our nonverbal cues, to avoid judgment and discrimination. We have to pretend (aka prove) we’re not disabled or “different” or “weird.”
This experience is nearly universal among autistic people, especially those who learn about their neurotype later in life. Most report some form of three major themes:
They do it to keep other people comfortable and happy with them
They do it maintain access to public spaces, healthcare, employment, and more
It’s exhausting and leads to burnout
A quote from one of our surveys said that autistic masking was, “Pretending to be [non-autistic] so I can get through the day unscathed.” And that it, “Leaves me feeling exhausted.”
What to do if an autistic person is masking around you
The first, and easiest, thing you can do is nothing. Don’t react. Masking is a survival instinct for autistic people. It can take years of careful practice and exploration to unmask. It’s often unintentional and not a reflection of any one person.
There are several things you might notice if an autistic person is masking around you:
Incongruities between phrasing, small details, behaviors, and non-verbal cues
A sense of forced or faked emotion
Excessive agreeableness and people pleasing
Signs of dissociation
Stress or agitation before or after a social interaction
Practicing “scripts” or a sense that what someone is saying is practiced
Excessive apologizing
Incongruities in stated beliefs, preferences, ideas, etc
Struggles with flow and pace of conversations that result in awkward exchanges
Panic during or after random and/or awkward exchanges
Burnout and/or meltdowns
Expressions of shame or self-effacing remarks, especially after a mistake, a conflict, or a part of their disability shows
Mirroring the behavior, phrasing, and mannerisms of those around them
Allow space for autistic employees to have a lengthy awkward phase in the first months to year of employment. Even beyond that, honestly. Many autistic people are just now learning about themselves and are exploring their authentic selves and their actual needs. While interacting with autistic employees, showing compassion and assuming goodwill will go a very long way in creating an inclusive culture.
Employee Resource Groups can help with education and training that allows for a compassionate understanding of autistic masking and thin slice judgment biases. This approach grants inclusion and privacy by mentoring management in autistic communication styles.
🎁 Bonus Mistake!: Not Building an Inclusion Loop
When you accommodate autistic individuals and nurture their professional growth, you end up with talented members of your staff to fill out management positions. By including neurodivergent folks in management, you save on resources needed to educate management on neurodivergent issues. You also have understanding talent that can nurture new hires.
Common autistic strengths include:
Problem solving
Innovation
Persistence
Detail oriented
Driven
Passionate
Valuing acts of service
Integrity
Companies with disabled folks in management positions experience growth in profit, scale, and reputation. Over a four year study, inclusive companies outperformed their peers by an average of:
28% more Revenue
30% more Economic Profit Margins
2x the Net Income
So, nurturing autistic talent and moving them up through the ranks creates higher profits and room for growth within the company.
In a Nutshell
The autistic community is full of diverse, talented individuals who deserve financial and economic independence and stability. They deserve to have these things without sacrificing their mental and physical health.
Accommodations are surprisingly simple and cost effective. They also significantly improve company profits and growth in both the short and long term.
Given the high unemployment rates among autistic folks, there is a huge untapped talent pool that any company with an inclusive and informed culture can access.
How can Spectroomz help
Learn more about autism. You can start by taking our course How to Hire (and Keep) Autistic Employees. You’ll learn what kind of obstacles autistic people face at work, what specific accommodations help, and how you can implement them in your company in cost effective ways.
Sources:
Data and Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder - CDC
2021 Developer Survey - StackOverflow
Getting to equal: The disability inclusion advantage
Outcomes for Disabled People in the UK: 2020
Autism Spectrum Disorder Definition - NIMH
Lost in Translation? Working With Autistic Adults - A Disaster Analysis
Effective Employee Resource Groups Are Key to Inclusion at Work. Here's How to Get Them Right
Workplace Bullying: The Deep South Version
NeuroTypical Peers are Less Likely to Interact With Autistic People Based on Thin Slice Judgments
Introduction to Mobbing in the Workplace
Disability in the Workplace: What Companies Need to Know and Do
Neurodiverse Applicants Are Revolutionizing The Hiring Process
The Post-High School Outcome of Young Adults With Disabilities up to 8 Years After High School
https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-89/accenture-disability-inclusion-research-report.pdf
Your Complete Guide to ADHD Brains and Productivity at Work
About Spectroomz - We Help Neurodivergents folks Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
By: Vanessa Blanchard
Intro
Outside of the ADHD community, the role of executive function in ADHD and productivity is under-explored. Instead, clinical settings focus on attention and energy when discussing or diagnosing ADHD (see the three types of ADHD). And while attention and energy are definitely factors, they’re like the swelling on a sprained ankle. The relationship between ADHD and productivity is a rich tapestry of interwoven issues, and executive function plays a significant role. In fact, productivity at work, or in daily life, is impacted in nearly every way by executive dysfunction in the ADHD brain.
Understanding the full picture leads to compassion and empowerment when developing coping skills and encountering symptoms. Not understanding leads to a lot of conflict, shame, and frustration -- as well as lost jobs and relationships.
It doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why Spectroomz has put together this guide, which has three goals:
To inform you about the ADHD brain and how it impacts productivity
To demonstrate how ADHD impacts work practices and preferences, and
To provide a range of ADHD hacks that can help inspire your journey towards productivity at work.
Let’s start with the fun stuff, the brain!
Executive Function’s Role in ADHD
Executive functions are cognitive processes that allow you to perform the behaviors necessary to do daily things. This includes your ability to organize, plan, manage time, and more. When you experience executive dysfunction, you lose the ability to organize your behavior in these areas. This leads to behaviors typically associated with ADHD, such as impulsiveness or “laziness.”
Only this isn’t laziness, it’s neurology.
Your executive functioning is managed by four parts of your brain. Each area organizes different aspects of functioning:
Working memory, getting started, and planning
Time management and sustaining behaviors
Emotional regulation and decision making
Self-awareness and environmental awareness
Many factors impact your executive functioning, from brain development to environmental influences. You can find executive dysfunction in a number of conditions. Autism, ADHD, depression, and addiction are a few examples of diagnoses that display executive dysfunction.
Organizing these aspects of executive functioning lets you build several important skills:
Self-awareness
Working memory
Emotional regulation
Impulse control
Motivation
Planning and problem solving
Spectroomz Helps Neurodivergents folks Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
Executive dysfunction compromises all of these skills. And it’s not just the development of the skills, but our ability to maintain access to them. People with ADHD will tell you in droves that their coping skills only partially work. Or they’ll work for a while and then stop working. Symptoms can shift, change, and rotate in and out of our lives.
Every aspect of executive functioning rests at the heart of productivity. The dysregulation found in ADHD disrupts productivity by making it difficult to control certain behaviors and states of being (i.e. focused).
“I feel like I’m at war with myself”
Keep in mind that when we say “control behaviors” we don’t mean that ADHD is about misbehaving. That stigma shifts focus away from our experiences and frames us as inconvenient to others. If you talk to people with ADHD, they express shame and frustration over not being able to do things they definitely want to do. People who’ve never met share very similar stories about the great lengths they go to in order to “control” their behaviors.
More brain stuff that impacts ADHD:
While executive dysregulation plays an important role in ADHD and productivity, there are a few other issues at play. First, there are a couple of neurotransmitters that research indicates might also be dysregulated in ADHD brains. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that allow signals to travel through the brain. There are many kinds of neurotransmitters, but the two relevant to ADHD theory are:
Norepinephrine, which regulates attention, mood, and sleep
Dopamine, which regulates attention, learning, mood, and sleep. It also helps with coordinating movement in our bodies.
Deficiencies or dysregulation in the neurotransmitters can help explain certain ADHD experiences, such as wanting to do something but not being able to turn that motivation into action. The signal just never seems to translate. We also seem to feel it in symptoms such as the brain fog and fatigue we experience after “pushing through” other symptoms. You can see this in the way that some ADHDers need rewards to be productive. We need to “replenish” our stores.
In short, we might feel depleted because we literally are.
This is why some medications (such as stimulants and certain non-stimulants) work to treat many ADHD symptoms. It’s also why you’ll see many ADHDers (especially undiagnosed ones) with long-standing “self-medication” habits, such as consuming sugar, carbs, nicotine, and caffeine.
Finally, the last area of the brain we’ll mention is the striatum. Striatum abnormalities might play a role in hyperactivity. The striatum regulates movement, motivation, and impulse control and is thought to play a role in hyperactivity in ADHD. Also seems to play a role in social learning.
The core theory here is that ADHD brains might lack some of the neurotransmitters needed to organize, perform, and maintain executive functioning.
Key Takeaways:
Here are a few key points we’d like to impart about the brain’s role in the relationship between ADHD and productivity:
Because ADHD impacts so many parts of the brain, symptoms can vary greatly from person to person but also from day to day within the same person.
Coping will include a rotating cast of skills and methods. Something that works now might stop working for a bit. We might desensitize to something and crave a new way to cope.
Common understanding of ADHD doesn’t consider the brain stuff, which leads to stigmatizing reactions to our symptoms (classifying us as lazy, unmotivated, poorly behaved, and disinterested).
Fighting with executive dysfunction makes even everyday tasks more difficult.
ADHDers often feel shame and harsh judgment towards ourselves because we can’t measure up to non-disabled expectations.
Most of us are either trying really hard or utterly depleted. Or a combination of both.
Other Stuff That Influences Productivity with ADHD
Neurology plays a significant role in ADHD, but there are many other things that will influence symptoms and impact our ability to be productive at work.
Sensory needs - Many ADHD folks will need to control their sensory environments in order to be focused and productive. People with ADHD report needing time to hyperfocus, which usually means they need to shut out all distractions. Our needs are often a combination of sensory seeking and avoiding (such as needing to work alone AND listen to lofi beats in order to focus).
Social Needs - ADHDers tend to skew towards introversion, but most report at least some extroversion. For example, most of the people who took our quiz, 18 Best Jobs for People with ADHD, reported preferring a combination of self-employment and traditional employment. Results from the quiz indicate that there’s a need for both autonomy and exterior collaboration and/or direction (we’ll discuss this more in the next section).
Co-occurring conditions - Certain conditions, such as autism and PTSD, frequently co-occur with ADHD. This, along with any other health conditions, can influence productivity, focus, memory, emotional regulation, and more.
Environmental needs - Because ADHD is a disability, the environment we work in will significantly impact our wellbeing. Everything from sensory needs to protection from common workplace discrimination issues will need to be considered when accommodating ADHD at work. External support is often key to our success, because it takes some of the burden off of our executive functioning demands. However, external support that is stigmatizing can be very harmful to people with ADHD.
There’s honestly more that probably could be added, but the point is that a lot of stuff impacts how people with ADHD are able to function, both in their personal lives and at work. So now, let’s talk about the ways that these factors influence how ADHD affects our work styles/needs/preferences.
Spectroomz Helps Neurodivergents folks Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
How ADHD Impacts Productivity at Work
There are many more obvious impacts that ADHD can have on productivity:
Struggling to start, finish, or transition between tasks
Trouble planning and organizing
Periods of distractibility and periods of intense focus
Impulsivity, fidgeting, anxiety, etc
Other emotional regulation struggles (irritability, depression, etc)
Difficulties managing time, time blindness
Social struggles, including biases, stigmas, discrimination, and poorly informed (about ADHD) support networks or peers
However, there are LOTS of other ways that ADHD impacts our working styles that aren’t just about our struggles and “deficits.” Here are a few common themes in how ADHDers like to work.
Creative Work
People with ADHD often gravitate towards creative work. In fact, 52% of the people we asked said that creative work was very important to them (only 12% said creative work wasn’t important to them at all). We often prefer project-based work because it offers a high degree of novelty while including some predictable, routine work. Surprisingly, people with ADHD do prefer that there is some routine work in their days. Many of us rely on external support to sustain our routines, and repetitive tasks can help with that.
That being said, we often prefer that things like deadlines are flexible. External support help maintain routines, but our needs can change daily. So, deadlines can either be a source of motivation and focus, or they can contribute to overwhelm and avoidance. Plus, we often deal with days where no matter how hard we try, we simply won’t get anything done (see brain fog). Flexible supports allow us to complete projects without learning to rely on emergencies and stress states to be productive.
Working Socially
Our quiz results showed that people with ADHD tended to skew towards introversion, but many identified as at least a little extroverted as well. This is another reason project-based work can be so appealing to us, because projects lend themselves to group or collaborative work. ADHD folks often find it beneficial and energizing to work with others, even if only on a part-time basis.
Most ADHDers will want at least some time to work alone. Usually, this is to help eliminate distractions and to give us room for self-regulation (i.e. fidgeting to regulate symptoms of hyperactivity). However, having a group, mentor, or supervisor to check in with can work wonders to ease executive dysfunction symptoms. Likewise, you’ll often find people with ADHD who simply cannot focus unless they’re in a room with other people. Having another person beside you to help you focus is called body doubling and it’s surprisingly effective.
Our survey also found that most ADHDers wanted a combination of independent and external supervision. This could reflect the rotating, complex nature of our symptoms. There are likely times where only we are able to understand or meet our needs. However, it seems that informed, compassionate external support is a significant need in the ADHD community.
External Supports
One of the main ways that we have for maintaining productivity with ADHD and executive dysfunction, is to externalize many of the ways we organize or motivate ourselves. External support can come in many forms. Here are just a few:
Having time lines or deadlines to follow
Making lists, or using planners or apps to map out tasks and/or projects
Setting reminders for time-sensitive events
Working with therapists, mentors, supervisors, assistants, or team members
Even coworking in a rented space can help
Using focus aids, such as ASMR, study beats, the pomodoro method, and more
Anything that makes it so that the ADHD brain isn’t solely responsible for keeping it all straight. And like we said before, what works will vary from person to person.
Supporting productivity in ADHD is a kindness that allows us more control over our lives without labeling us as a “burden” or “bother.” People with ADHD can lean into their strengths and thrive when properly supported at work.
When External Support Harms Instead of Helps
It can be very helpful to have the support of the people around you. However, if the support is rigid and inflexible, then there’s a lot of room for shame and judgment to take hold. When there is no peer education about ADHD, or when supervisors lead with ableism, then the ADHD brain is set up to fail. As mentioned early, social discrimination is a very real threat to people with ADHD, and we carry a ton of emotional fallout from improper support throughout our lives.
ADHD Strengths at Work
ADHD is usually discussed in terms of symptoms, deficits, and dysfunction. However, there are many strengths that come from ADHD traits as well. These strengths will also impact productivity at work.
For example, there are a number of very talented carpenters, painters, and drywallers in my family who have ADHD. They’re good at what they do, in part, because their jobs allow them outlets for both their hyperactivity and hyper focus needs. They are good at dealing with setbacks and roadblocks because their impulsivity also makes them creative and adaptable. People with ADHD can be really good at brainstorming and pivoting.
Some people with ADHD say that their ADHD makes them especially good in emergencies because they can stay calm and focused during chaos. Others find that their coping skills make them especially good at things like project management, content creation, or event planning (even more so if there’s a team of some kind to support them).
Because ADHD brains tend to cycle through interests and hobbies -- picking up an interest, hyperfocusing, and then pivoting to another -- we’re also very good at learning new skills, adapting to shifting technologies, and generalizing our skills (i.e. becoming a “jack of all trades”). It should be noted that many of us seem to have a kinetic learning style, meaning traditional education can be challenging. We’ll thrive if we’re doing it in real time, though.
There are so many more strengths I could list, but you get the idea. Leave a comment below if you can think of something I left out. It’s time now to talk about some of the most common hacks that help with ADHD and productivity.
Helpful ADHD Productivity Hacks
If you have ADHD, then what works for you will depend on your personality, the environment you’re in, and your mental and physical state on any given day. What works for you might not work for someone else with the same condition. Heck, what works for you today might not work for you tomorrow. That’s why it’s important to have a number of skills and/or tools that you use to aid in your coping.
Here are 8 hacks that could help with your ADHD symptoms and improve your productivity:
Gamifying your work: Many aspects of gaming work wonders for ADHD symptoms. Not only is it rewarding, it can help reinforce a lot of important skills. For example, playing the Sims in my late teens/early 20s taught me a lot about planning, goal setting, and realistically breaking down big tasks (all while balancing daily needs). Adding game-like elements to “boring” tasks in real life can make all stages of the task easier to manage.
ASMR: White, pink, and brown noise seem to be very good at quieting ADHD brains so that it’s easier to achieve and maintain focus. There’s more anecdotal evidence than clinical research on this topic. However, people with ADHD pretty consistently report it’s helpful. Just read the comments on this article for an example (even the one that says ASMR doesn’t help goes on to describe several ways it does).
Body Doubling: Work partners can help reduce distractibility and increase focus. There are many ADHDers who find that having another person to work with makes a stark difference. This can work in person, or remotely. There’s even a whole genre of YouTube videos dedicated to working and studying with another person.
Lists: Controversial suggestion, because this is another tactic that many can find useless or become desensitized to. But, it can often help to have listed instructions, tasks, schedules, etc. This allows the ADHD brain to focus on one detail at a time while supporting our planning and transitions between tasks. Some people like to go all out and do bullet journals, but even a simple list scrawled on a whiteboard can be enough. It lets our minds declutter.
Fidgets: We often have a need to move while completing certain types of tasks. Movement helps a lot of us with processing and organizing information. Learning through doing keeps our minds stimulated enough to prevent boredom and maintain focus.
Medication: Not a hack, but still a genuine thing that people often really need. Because ADHD is more about brain functions than behavioral problems. Many of the symptoms of ADHD are greatly improved by steady access to appropriate medications.
Productivity Apps: There are many apps available to help with managing ADHD and productivity. Habitica, for example, gamifies tasks, which creates a reward system support for executive dysfunction. Also incorporates list making to help with organization, planning, and task transitions. Other apps can help with list making (i.e. Todoist) or with organizing daily, weekly, and monthly calendars (i.e. Tiimo). We’re not paid to endorse these products, they’re just examples of apps you can use. Spectroomz is developing a productivity app of our own! Sign up for early access here.
Pomodoro Method: The Pomodoro Technique is a method where you set timers to work for a certain amount of time (usually 25-50 minutes) and then set a second timer for a short break (usually, 5-10 minutes). Many people will pair this with a body double. However, some find this is not helpful because the scheduled break is more of an interruption. As always, the perfect hack for ADHD and productivity will depend on the individual person and the kind of day they’re having.
The Bottom Line on ADHD and Productivity at Work
Dysregulation is at the heart of what causes disruptions to productivity in people with ADHD. Symptoms can be a significant, unpredictable hurdle towards sustained productivity at work and in daily life. In fact, there will be days where no matter how hard they try, the ADHDer just won’t be able to get things done.
That’s why it’s important to know why these hurdles pop up. Because knowing enables folks with ADHD to work smarter, to rest when needed, and to find the coping skills that work for their specific brain. Supporting an ADHD brain at work will mean offering flexibility and compassion. The key to understanding the relationship between ADHD and productivity is to ask the specific ADHDer who is trying to be productive.
Tell us in the comments what helps or prevents you from being productive
About me
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.
The Worst Jobs for People with ADHD
About Spectroomz - We Help Neurodivergents folks Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
By: Vanessa Blanchard
ADHD is an unpredictable thing sometimes. There’s a significant range to the symptoms that someone with ADHD could have. That means that there’s also a range to the kinds of jobs that people with ADHD should avoid. Whether or not a job is a good fit depends largely on the type of ADHD you have.
If you’re curious about the type of ADHD you have and the kind of job that is good for you, take our quiz, 18 Best Jobs for ADHD.
Regardless of what type of ADHD you have, there are a number of career options that many folks with ADHD would struggle to thrive in.
Here are a few examples of the worst jobs for people with ADHD:
Data entry
Accounting
Librarian
Laboratory work
Assembly lines or factory work
Fast food
Retail
Clerical work
Why are these bad jobs for ADHD?
The biggest problem with any job will be whether or not the person with ADHD has the freedom to self-regulate. There are a number of employment factors that can hinder that freedom:
The job is overstimulating
The job is understimulating
The job is not flexible enough
The job is never predictable
The job is too predictable
This might sound like a lot of contradiction, but ADHD is, at its core, about dysregulation. Our attention, our motivation, our executive functioning, and even our emotions can all be dysregulated. There are myriad ways for this to express itself in an individual. And there are even more variations of our symptoms based on other neurological, health, and environmental factors.
That’s why flexibility is so important in the work we choose. People with ADHD need to avoid jobs that will be rigid and inflexible in their expectations. We need to avoid jobs that will drain our energy to the point of burnout. ADHD burnout is its own kind of burnout, specifically because struggling against dysregulation makes even everyday tasks harder for us to accomplish.
Why the worst job for some won’t be the worst job for others
A lot of what are viewed as deficits in ADHD are also our strengths. For example, we can be impulsive, but that same impulsivity makes us flexible problem solvers and innovators. We are adaptable often because we’re able to pivot on cue.
The same symptom can also present itself differently in different people. Hyperfocus for a person with inattentive ADHD often means that the person focuses deeply on a detailed task while shutting out the rest of the world. Alternatively, hyperfocus in hyperactive ADHD types translates into being especially able to navigate chaotic or emergency situations. Hyperactivity can mean being constantly “on the go” or it can mean being very fidgeting. It can also look like someone who is very talkative and anxious. It just depends on the individual’s neurology and brain development.
So a job like fast food might be great for someone who has hyperactive ADHD but absolutely awful for someone who has inattentive ADHD. It’s included in the list above specifically because most people with ADHD would avoid such a hectic and inflexible job.
The Key is Balance
Most people with ADHD will find that the worst jobs are the ones that don’t let them balance their work responsibilities with their disability needs. Accordingly, some of the best jobs for people with ADHD do exactly the opposite.
Jobs like data entry were included in the list because data entry tasks are likely to be understimulating if it’s the core part of the workday. However, when they’re not the majority of our job, tasks like accounting or data entry can be “grounding” tasks that assist with certain ADHD symptoms. Grounding tasks are predictable routines, which helps clear hurdles around executive dysfunction and attention regulation. While we thrive with novelty in many ways, novelty can also trigger dysregulation. Perfectionism and avoidance are symptoms of ADHD.
A friend once likened this issue to a pinball machine. Sometimes, if a task is new or intimidating, the uncertainty can prevent ADHD focus from settling in. Rather, it tends to ping around like a ball in a pinball machine. Ironically, it’s times like these when the ADHD brain seems to be craving hyperfocus rather than creative, abstract thinking. Having a routine task to fall back on during times like this can remove the uncertainty obstacle and bridge the gap between “pinball brain'' and a hyper focused state.
Too much novelty and our attention will bounce around. That being said, if there’s too much repetition, then boredom sets in.
Boredom in this case isn’t an attitude or lack of interest. Rather, it’s a physical state of under-stimulation that people with ADHD find kind of painful. Even super fascinating topics can lead to boredom states if we’re forced to engage in ways that aren’t friendly to the ADHD brain.
Takeaway: Avoid Jobs That Don’t Accommodate Your ADHD
The best way to know what jobs to avoid when you have ADHD is to know your ADHD. Know what type you have, what your symptoms are, and what works to help you cope with them. With this information in mind, you’ll know what kinds of jobs to look for. Here are a few examples to help you conceptualize of how this balancing act can work:
Writing is better for someone who likes projects and a mix of autonomous and collaborative workflows.
Event planning is better for someone who’s more extroverted, focuses up in a pinch, and craves frequent, new challenges.
Content production is great for creative types who benefit from small-group collaboration to help stay motivated and on track.
Whatever you choose, pick the jobs that support your needs and utilize your unique strengths. You’ll find that the worst jobs for people with ADHD are the ones that make you pretend like you don’t have it.
Now it’s your turn to tell us in the comments 👇 what is the worst job you have ever had as an ADHD
About me
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.
The Best Jobs for People with ADHD (for all 3 Types)
About Spectroomz - We Help Neurodivergents folks Get Qualified To More Work From Home Jobs.
By: Vanessa Blanchard
People with ADHD sometimes struggle to maintain employment. Symptoms of ADHD can cause issues with productivity, time management, and socialization, making it difficult to manage our workloads. We might miss deadlines, interrupt our peers a lot, or lose momentum in the middle of a project. But ADHD is more than just disruptive to others. It comes with a whole host of strengths that can be channeled into satisfying careers. The best jobs for people with ADHD are jobs that support our needs while harnessing our strengths.
Hi! My name is Vanessa and I’m neurodivergent. I work with Spectroomz to bring awareness to ND folks and potential employers about neurodivergent brains. For years, I have studied and written about different types of neurodivergence, including autism, ADHD, and PTSD (among others). Much of the information I share in these articles involves lessons I’ve learned from dealing with my own set of developmental and neurological conditions. In my experience, finding a career that fits well with the ADHD brain can be challenging, which can take a huge toll on a person’s confidence. The goal with this article (and all that I write with Spectroomz) is to help people make more informed choices about their career paths.
Determining the best career for your ADHD brain depends on your type of ADHD as well (it’s also true for the worst careers for ADHD). That’s why last year, Spectroomz made a quiz called, 18 Best Jobs for People with ADHD. We wanted to help people answer questions about their preferred working habits and then give them ideas to jumpstart their career exploration. Thousands of people have taken the quiz, so we thought we’d expand on these ideas with an article that explains a bit more why some jobs work better for us than others.
What is ADHD?
ADHD is often described as some combination of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. However, at its core, ADHD is an issue of dysregulation and something called executive dysfunction. Essentially, what this means is that the ADHD brains develop in a way that impairs our ability to do things like organize, plan, sustain motivation, and initiate or switch between tasks. Inattention is only part of the issue. The real issue comes with the regulation of our attention. This includes both being distractible/inattentive and struggles with shifting our attention away from a hyper-focused state.
Hyperfocus is not talked about as much in literature about ADHD, but our quiz showed that it is an extremely important state for ADHD folks to achieve. 73.6% of the thousands of respondents said that hyperfocus was very important to them in their daily lives. Only 8% said that hyperfocus wasn’t important to them.
By the way, we started a collaborative playlist of focus music for ADHD. You can add your songs here (the link is valid for 7 days, so if you can’t add your songs, just ask me for access here. I try to update the link every wee).
Along with the commonly known symptoms, ADHD symptoms can also include emotional dysregulation, hyperverbality, time blindness, and impaired working memory. People with ADHD have an increased rate of co-occurring autism and some learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and dyscalculia.
Currently, there are three types of ADHD:
Inattentive - Difficulty regulating focus without hyperactivity
Hyperactive - Hyperactivity without attention regulation problems
Combination - Includes both hyperactivity and attention regulation problems
Most people are combo types. Our quiz showed that 57% of respondents were in this combination category. 27.9% rated themselves as mostly inattentive. The purely hyperactive group has the fewest members (15.4%).
Because executive dysfunction impacts multiple areas of the brain, there’s a range of symptoms that can occur between individuals with the same ADHD diagnosis. The range of possible symptoms means that there’s a range of accommodations and career types that will benefit ADHD folks. Likewise, there are many commonalities between the different types that also dictate what might make a job a good fit for someone with ADHD.
So with this understanding of ADHD in mind, let’s look at some of the best job options out there for people with ADHD. We’ll look first at general suggestions and then break it down by type to suggest even more options.
Great Jobs for People with ADHD
In general, the best options are jobs that use ADHD’s natural tendencies towards flexible, innovative thinking, creativity, and problem solving. This seems to be true regardless of the type of ADHD. In fact, 21% of our quiz respondents said that creative work was “most important” to them. 87.7% rated creative work as at least somewhat important to them.
Other important commonalities were for work to be project-based, with a combination of novelty and routine. In our survey, 29% of respondents needed more routine work than novel work in their daily lives. This might seem counterintuitive because people with ADHD are known to avoid “boredom.” However, routine work allows for easy access to hyperfocus states and nearly 74% of our respondents rated themselves as having very high hyperfocus needs. Needing a hyper focused state means they need time to focus deeply without interruption.
Now let’s look at a couple of general suggestions for ADHD-friendly jobs. Then, we’ll break things down and give suggestions based on the ADHD type.
In General:
In general, jobs that are friendly to ADHD brains work well because they involve a lot of problem solving, creativity, and tend to include both novel and routine tasks. Here are some general suggestions of good jobs for people with ADHD.
Business owner
Sales & Marketing
Graphic design
Web development
Programming
Social media management
Event planning
Public relations
Because ADHD involves dysregulation, symptoms can often change based on a number of factors. For example, a deadline can either overcome a motivation block or cause one. This changes within a person depending on their mental state, their relationship with the project or people involved, their brand of perfectionism, etc.
Our quiz showed a tendency for people to need flexible arrangements for things like deadlines and work environments. Many ADHD folks also tend to need at least some way to externalize their motivation, through things like deadlines, mentors, competition, or body doubles. Alternately, having the option to work alone can help people with ADHD achieve and maintain hyperfocus, overcome perfectionism, fidget freely, and minimize distractions.
You’ll notice variations among these themes as we discuss the specific types, but most of these general needs will exist in some form.
Best Jobs by ADHD Type:
Inattentive Type
People with this type of ADHD tend to be more introverted and are more likely to work alone. They have high hyperfocus needs and often require more control over their environments to keep distractions at bay. A lot of inattentive type ADHD folks will gravitate towards freelancing or other entrepreneurial ventures.
The best career options for this type of ADHD are jobs that combine repetitive work with project based work and moderate to low physical activity. These jobs require a lot of verbal skills and the ability to multitask, which can complement the ADHD brain. Here are a few examples of good jobs for inattentive ADHD:
Writing
Editing
Research
Transcription
Data analysis
Artist
Programming
These jobs involve work that would require a lot of hyperfocus. Elements like deadlines, external motivators (such as a collaborative team), and routine work can help keep attention regulated, but they also allow for a lot of autonomous work. Many introverted ADHD folk will enjoy the freedom to work alone for most of their tasks while using the occasional social presence of a team to keep them on task.
Combination Type
People with the combination type of ADHD tend to be less introverted than the predominantly inattentive type. The need for a balance of novelty and routine is still present with this group, but they’ll often prefer to work a bit more with people.
Work that allows for quick-thinking and problem solving and incorporates some physical activity needs are best for people with this type of ADHD. Plus, there is more room for novelty (and maybe some chaos) in work like this, with less emphasis on repetitive work. Here are a few examples of good jobs for combination type ADHD:
Content Creator
Writer
IT and/or Customer Support
Teaching
Construction
Landscaping
Marketing & Sales
These careers are much more likely to be collaborative and team-based. Many people with combo type ADHD will find these jobs are best because the team helps support the ADHD brain’s executive dysfunction. Projects are harder to fall by the wayside if there’s a team juggling the duties.
Hyperactive Type
People with the hyperactive type of ADHD are often quite extroverted. They prefer work that is physically demanding and requires socializing. Executive dysfunction shows up in an inability to “turn off” meaning that this type of ADHD brain is always “on the go.” So people with this type of ADHD will prefer fast paced, ever changing jobs that require quick problem solving. Here are a few examples of great careers for hyperactive ADHD:
Personal trainer
Real estate
Firefighter/EMT
Nursing
Kitchen/food service
Security guard
Event Planner
Photographer
People with this type of ADHD tend to achieve a sort of hyperfocus during “emergencies” rather than during times of stillness or isolation. Because of this, they can struggle with routine tasks, such as paperwork.
The Best Jobs Meet Your Individual Needs
The best way to find a good job for people with ADHD is to understand the individual’s symptoms and support needs. Knowing your type of ADHD can help, but ultimately, you’ll need to find a job that supports all the ways that ADHD can be both tricky and a huge asset. It might sound tough at first, but people with ADHD have always existed. There’s definitely a job option out there that is compatible with your ADHD brain. Best of luck to you!
Now it’s your turn to tell us in the comments 👇 what is the best job you have ever had as an ADHD
About me
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.