At Long Last - Corporations are Hiring More People on the Spectrum

While increased neurodiversity represents a huge, positive step forward for autistic individuals, there are certainly some things to be concerned about. Whether companies are hiring autistic individuals to generate a positive public image or because they want to tap into a wealth of available talent, there’s still a risk of autistic individuals being reduced to nothing more than a resource. While it’s true that many autistic individuals have skills with data and technical problem solving, not every autistic individual is a genius computer programmer. In fact, only 58% of autistic individuals who finish high school actually end up having a paid job, and that figure doesn’t even account for the many individuals who aren’t able to finish high school. With this type of buzz about neurodiversity, it may be easy for companies to get caught up in a rush for talent and forget that they are working with real people who have a variety of symptoms that can manifest in a variety of ways.