REALTIME FILE
WVU CED ABILITY GRAND ROUNDS WEBINAR / JOB ID 958440
DECEMBER 14, 2021
START 1 AM ET
END 2 PM ET

This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 
>> This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 
>> JAYNE (Captioner): Standing by. 
>> MELINA: Okay I think some people are having some login issues but we do have a lot of people already joining us. So I'm glad. And I'm still getting a few people coming in from the waiting room. So thank you for that. And just give us another minute or two and then I will turn the presentation over to Dr. Jetha. Is it pronounced JEtha or JEEtha? 
>> DR. ARIF JETHA: You had it pronounced right the 1st time. 
>> Okay. 
>>  Okay I will introduce Dr. Jetha and he is joining us from Toronto, Canada where he sharing with me it is a sunny and nice day and I want to thank you all for joining us today. Dr. Jetha Will talk about what the future of work looks like to young people with disabilities. With that said I will turn the presentation over to him, if you have any questions throughout his presentation go ahead and enter them into the chat and we will see how to get those questions addressed. And as always there is the option to see the live Transcription I clicking the button in the bottom of your zoom window that has the live cc option there. So if there is any questions go ahead and let me know in the chat and with that I will turn over to Dr. Jetha. 
>> DR. ARIF JETHA: Thank you so much and thank you to everyone on the line today. I'm really excited to be presenting. The research that we have been working on last few years and particular studies on young workers and disabilities and their perceptions of the future of work.
So I will provide background prior to jumping into the research findings.
I know this is a smaller group so if obviously you can ask questions in the chat function if you want to unmute yourself and ask questions in real time about anything that I'm presenting on, I would be happy to answer those questions just to kind of keep things going.
 Will kind of tradition that we have in Canada there has been kind of a movement towards acknowledging the lands, with which we have colonized over the last century or so. So I'm just going to start my presentation by acknowledging the land on which the Institute for work and health operates and that is the organization that I represent for thousands of years has been the traditional land of [ names of recognitions for land] and it's important for me to talk about the topics when we talk about inclusion because in Canada there is inclusion z in addition with people with this ability to face barriers to inclusion. I had no idea where the town was ahead never been to West Virginia I spent five years in the US. It was awesome to see that your university is only a six-hour drive from Toronto, so it's pretty close I'm not sure if anyone has been to Toronto, but this is our skyline relatively compared to New York or LA it is relatively small.face barriers to inclusion. I had no idea where the town was ahead never been to West Virginia I spent five years in the US. It was awesome to see that your university is only a six-hour drive from Toronto, so it's pretty close I'm not sure if anyone has been to Toronto, but this is our skyline relatively compared to New York or LA it is relatively small.
About the size of Chicago in terms of population I believe but it's a really great city.
I hope in some point if you haven't visited you definitely will come check us out and visit it is a great place to see.
 We are a not-for-profit academic research in Toronto and we conduct and share research to protect and improve the health of working people and our searches carried out in two domains. And we connected a lot of studies on  workplace prevention and policies to promote health of the working population. And a second broad domain is improving the health and recovery of injured workers, improving the return to work of workers who experienced an injury or illness as well as disability prevention management as well as compensation policies. Our researches  is unique because we work closely to translate the academic findings into the hands of policymakers and we also work closely with employers and clinicians, occupational health and safety professionals as well as disability management professionals. And we have a really applied focus. Any individuals in putting myself, we have faculty appointments at the University of Toronto or we teach and mentor students.
 So as a bit of a background to the Institute for work in health.
 The research I will present on today is currently under peer review. And we do have a preprint available so if anyone wants to see it it is available I'm happy to share it with the group. At times I am zoomed out and it is almost the holiday season so at some point you might check out or check your e-mail or something.
I would like to start by highlighting some of the key points that emerged from our research. And I will spend the back end of this meeting or this webinar expanding on some of these key points. So we conducted a pretty  covering is a study of the future of work and as part of that we are talking to young workers living with disabilities and kind of the 1st key point that I want to highlight is that despite a growing discourse on changes that are occurring to the nature and availability of work and people with disabilities in our research tended to be hesitant to think too far into the future. Instead there was a greater focus on the present time and seeking a job support of working conditions and that is in line with what we know but it was in contrast to what we were thinking in terms of studies of the future of work.
So I can definitely expend on the a little bit as we move forward. The second key point is that a lot of participants acknowledged that the digital transformation of the economy would impact their employment. And this is kind of thinking about kind of drivers of change as our employment conditions change in the future. Interestingly those working precariously or instable implement are more likely to report that technology would disrupt their work.
On the other hand those working a secure job highlighted the technology would be beneficial to their employment may be provided level of inclusion that passed they might have been denied. And very lastly another key point is that a research describe the importance of gaining job skills for technological as well as soft skills to obtain jobs and demand or be excited to be in demand in the future and kind of in line with the earlier point, the work arrangements as well as the characteristics of a disability creative both Terriers or facilitators to obtaining job scaling that was necessary to compete for these jobs.
 So now going to the background I'm going back and forth a little bit. Let's provide an underpinning of some of the insights that led to us doing this work.
 So in Canada I believe in a population of about 38 million people, so relative to the U.S. it is we are quite small even though geographically we are very big. Estimates suggest that about 1/5 of the population self-reports as having a disability. And data from our national statistics agency, to 26 Canada shows about 2 million youth and young adults report living with a disability. The same statistics agency finds that youth and young adults with a disability is socially those that self-reports are more  severe discipline are more likely to hold patent limit when compared to their peers with disability. And also statistics shows or than 110,000 youth with Canadian NEET meaning neither enrolled in education or employment and a marker of economic exclusion. Those classified as NEET over three quarters work and want to work the statistics represents a concerning gap in Canada and in highlights of policies and entrance in the labour market of disabled people as well as advancement of policies and programs.
 So one key reason for studying the employment of young people with disabilities in particular is they are in the midst of a critical period of their working life which is often referred to as a school to work transition. So as part of the school to work transition a person leaves educational roles whether post secondary or secondary education and enters and they might make multiple steps to kind of get to the ultimate goal of finding full-time permanent work. If that is their goal. And that in can include preparing to work, making efforts to move in within their job, and a number of studies find the challenges to implement during the school to work transition can have a scoring effect along with paid work that process or can persist across the working rights, and highlighting this is a critical time to promote employment engagement.
 Research that we have led at the Institute for work and health has highlighted the role of working conditions in the school to work transition. Is socially for young people living with disabilities.
 Our past research has shown that when a person enters a labour market, in a job that is characterized by commissions which are more supportive and accommodating to a disability, they are more like they to experience higher quality employment. As well as hold  positive perceptions, regarding their work and feeling more satisfied and less stressed about their work.
 And where it is advancing and working within the working world. As a brief definition, I define the future of work as a large-scale and rapid digitization and automation of diverse domains of working life.
 But it is not just about technology, the future of work is also coupled with social, graphic, political as well as environmental changes.
 And it reflects a dramatic change to every industry and the transformation of all aspects of our working life including where we were, how we work, and when we work. And industrialized countries like Canada and the U.S. the future of work occurs in conjunction with ongoing industrial shifts that we are currently seeing like the move for manufacturing sectors to knowledge-based sectors. The off shoring of work, the growth and nonstandard work arrangements like gig work or micro tasking z are all things occurring right before us and they will be exacerbated as the future of work is realized.
 One critical reason the study, the future of work, occupations are being created. So in a recent study, economist at MIT conducted an analysis of occupational titles that existed in the 1940s and compared that to occupations that existed in the 2018.
 What they found was that six to present of occupations held by employees in 2018 did not exist in the 19 forties. These are brand-new occupations and we have all been working conditions. The authors highlighted the emergence of technology related occupations like IT specialist or biomedical engineers as examples. What they also highlight the growth and in person service jobs. Mental health counselors and Somalis and fitness coaches and these represented another category of occupations that emerge during that period of time. So obviously the technology has the significant role in the emergence of the new occupations. But the authors also point to increased school of rural lies a which is resulted in the decline in jobs. And the manufacturing settings. Also a rise in wages which has meant that more people have money to spend in a service-based economy giving rise to some of those in person service types of jobs. So based on these powerful findings we can search ask ourselves several key questions. The 1st is what new jobs will be created and how will the working conditions within these new jobs create barriers or facilitators to employment for people living with disabilities? In the third is what steps can we take in the present to address barriers to include that may emerge in the future?
 So to start to address these questions are team at the Institute is leading a multiphase study to examine the up locations of the future of work for young people living with this abilities as well as other vulnerable worker groups.
 We have completed a horizon scan peer-reviewed gray and social media. Which I will present in the next slide. And then some of the data that I will be kind of focusing in on this presentation is based on interviews we conducted with young people with a lived experience of a disability. Over the summer we also completed interviews with a national sample of policy leaders and labour market experts. To get there a sense of what changes in the future of work would impact vulnerable worker groups and people with disabilities. And lastly these are all going to all money in the development of scenarios which characterize the future of work and can be used to inform policy and planning.
 So as noted in the earlier slide our 1st research phase on the future of work aimed at conducting a comprehensive horizon scan of peer and review research to examine the aspects of work that could emerge and country to adverse conditions for workers. So I thought I would briefly touch on these findings since they underpin the next phase of the research which I will focus more on as I move through this presentation.
 So our team identified nine key macro trends from technological social, political, as well as of our mental domains and characterize the future of work. Examples of these trends include the digital transformation of the economy, the growing application of artificial intelligence, as well as chronic change in the green economy, of note are study highlighted that these trends are interrelated and could individually as well as collectively country to phone ability in the future of work. So the horizon scan provides a roadmap to understand how the future of work and create conditions that pose challenges for people that live with disabilities. The scan also identified where cities can be implanted within workplaces and policy settings. That they are resilient to changes in the future of work.
 Given the time constraints of the talk I'm going to briefly touch on just a few themes and a little bit more depth to provide you more insight into what will be explored in our paper.
 So in discussions on the future of work it is clear to see that technologies will shape employment conditions. Alone of the tensions have been directed towards the digital dash mac of the economy is a significant driver of change.
You might have heard of the Internet of things, load centers, augmented reality, 3D printing, robotics, blockchain technology. Also increased discussion on artificial intelligence and machine learning with work places going computerized systems to rubble Kate human intelligence and behaviors. So why this is all diverse technologies it is between people, visual devices and data. Also rapidly change the ways that jobs are performed and the requirement for human workers to work alongside machines which deftly has in place and for people living with disabilities.
 And so the finding from our research show that the impact of technology can be fragmented and this is a theme that will emerge throughout this presentation.
 First technology can create challenges for people living with a disabilities, for example the advancement of digital platforms has facilitated gig work which can be more precarious and stressful. Also the growing application of AI can lead to the automation of work where repetitive jobs will continue to be replaced by machines. If you think about self checkout counters placing cashier jobs and grocery stores. Over time, and certain technology advances it's expected that more complex and predictive job task may be automated. As a result, there could be more competition for both entry-level and professional jobs. Also, there is a risk that a mobile entry-level jobs will be those that pay less, have unpredictable physical demands, could be more unsafe and could exacerbate disability. It is thought that these type of jobs might be challenging to automate as a result or continue to grow and think of nursing aides in the long-term care setting is a drop will continue to grow and demand but  might be hard for a machine to perform. And associate with opportunities for people living with disabilities.
The advancement of different technology can't be too gains and the developer of new occupations. Different technologies can also be leveraged to create conditions that are more accessible and to think about smart robots in the manufacturing setting. It can enable a person take up more cognitive demands while relying on a robot for physical support. Digital technology can also provide a level of flexibility. That can be beneficial for our people with disabilities. And also while the gig work can be seen in a negative light, for some workers it can also provide an entry point into the labor market. Furthermore in a digitized world, workers with emotional intelligence which cannot be replaced by a computer can be in high demand employers. This can be beneficial for workers from diverse groups, who have different lived experience. And again I want to highlight that future of work is not just about technology, in our horizon scan we found that climate change, blazing, opulence sentiments are all expected to change the nature and ability of work. Similarly external shocks,  natural disaster and pandemic has disrupt employment and working conditions. Consistency across these trans is it is the most phone will group of workers most affected and most likely to face adverse conditions. And research to understand how different affect how the future of work can create barriers to implement, inclusion for people with dis-abilities and as well as align the policies employment that could be resilient to these changes. This horizon scan were used as a framework as we are analyzing the qualitative data that will be presenting a little bit more today. So that in mind given this broad perspective of research that I just presented. Our team sought to kind of examine the perceptions held by young people of disabilities regarding their work history as well as the long-term employment prospects. And the ultimate goal is to determine if there aspects of the future of work that would change the labor market experiences of young people with disabilities and change the perception that they held with regards to being their career prospects. And so we conducted one-on-1 semistructured interviews with  people one-on-1 to me structured interviews. And we asked about past working expenses, your aspirations and the thoughts on different aspects of the future of work and that related to that horizon scan I just presented on. Participants recruited from the community and in order to capture breadth and depth in terms of thoughts and feelings regarding the future of work we aimed to recruit partisans different regarding to gender, disability type and status. All were recorded, transcribed verbatim and then identified. Our team will take wordbook which we applied to the data. Next week and actively examine themes emerging from the data. In the spring of 2020, in the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic what we are seeing is a lot of themes are emerging with regards to COVID-19 in the future of work so we want to tap into those themes we conducted additional sets of interviews.
 So overall we recruited about 22 participants over two thirds were women. Half were working full-time and about 18% were not working due to COVID-19 so they might have been furloughed or laid off as a result of lockdown resections happening in Canada.
About 55 percent had a physical disability and  45 reported mental or cognitive disability. I will expend on the themes we covered in the interviews in greater depth.
 So despite having multiple probes and asking them to present on the themes I identified earlier, there is a theme about work too far into the future. Many focused less on the threat of different aspects of the changing nature of work on their employment and  instead found they are more likely to center their  discussions and contribute limitations and employment research and in ways that can impact their career goals. Focused on the present rather than the future. And many participants described how fears of their health worsening would impact their ability to meet any career aspirations they may have had. So again this focus on a fear of things getting worse. On present time rather than thinking about how things would move forward. For instance, one participant who lived with a mental health his ability this crap the unpredictability of their health and how to create a challenge for planning for the future. And they noted it is difficult for me to think about the future because I used to make plans and life would go very unexpected ways so I just topped. This is a similar sentiment echoed across the participants in the spirit of planning and things not going the way that they expected because of living with a disability.
 Interestingly many purchase vents noted that the career decisions were not planning for any exogenous change of the working world, instead career decisions centered on the need to participate and manage changes to work and find health that accommodate a participant s disability. Participants described not wanting to leave and accommodating job and if that might be susceptible to disruption in the future. For instance one lived with a mental health this ability that-- I know that my health can fluctuate a lot and a year, it goes from feeling fine to not several times over a year. Because it's unpredictable it can affect everything. It can affect how well I can look for a job and how well I can perform at a job. I also think that the wrong job if I was in a job that was too high stress or they are not accommodating enough it can make my mental health worse.
 A lot of conversations about the future of work also focused on the nature of work arrangements. That were available to participants. Participants tended to note that finding a secure job was challenging and jobs most available to young workers tended to be conditioned and knee-jerk looting short-term contracts, gig work, freelancing or micro tasking. Partisans acknowledge that precarious forms of appointment provide entry point into the working world at the same time in precarious employment was frequently described as a significant barrier to sustaining employment with a disability and obtaining needing accommodations. For instance, one participant with a physical this ability describes the implications of the gig economy for people living with disabilities. They noted, [ reading from screen] and so this idea of the nature of work arrangements as related to discussions of the future of work was important that continue to emerge across conversations we had with participants.
 A majority of participants in our study also describing the technology as one of the most significant drivers of change to the future career. This is when we continue to probe the future of work a little bit in this idea of technology ended up being one of the key themes. So discussions on the role of the digital transformation of the economy highlighted will challenges and opportunities for people living with disabilities in our study. And as I will describe in the following  slides perception z are the positive or negative impact often related to work arrangements held by purchase men's. This idea of whether they are working securely or working precariously.
 In describing the opportunities that can be created by the digital transformation a lot of participants described the rural technology and creating flexibility in the ways work is performed and where is performed. Of note those tending to describe benefits of technology to people with this ability is had more secure work arrangements. For example participant working full-time in a white-collar job noted, [ reading from screen] [ slide 24].
 Another theme that emerged in discussions on the digital transformation of the economy was to continued role human workers and play.
Some participants noted that despite increasing reliance on employers that my employers had on the machines to automate work task their roles that will always be required for humans and so for example one purchase meant downplayed the risk of automation and cited changes in the banking sector they had observed. They noted, [ slide 25, reading from].
 And so to ensure that the opportunities associated with the digital transformation of the economy I realized several  participants realized the parts the employee or policy level supports to ensure the inclusive design and Apple Haitian of digital technologies. These participants noted that if employers maintain an eye towards accessibility, they could implement technology in ways that fought-- and also ensure that people living with disabilities are not disproportionately disadvantaged. And this balance between productivity and a inclusion was described nicely by one participant. [ Reading from slide 26]
 Despite the end of it's of the digital economy there can be some negative effects. Participants working precariously or likely to report that the use of digital technology will result in being disliked from the employment. For instance one purchase meant working in a part-time temporary customer service job describe the negative impact technology was having on their employment and our thoughts on the future. [ Reading from slide 27].
 Stemming from reflections on the digital transformation on the economy, and their career aspirations interview participants identified the match between their job skills that they  possessed and the future and this is the overarching and final theme in our research. A majority of participants indicated that having the minimum of baseline level digital undersea will provide the skills necessary to enter the workforce.
For example one participants who completed a bachelor of arts degree had a career goal to obtain implement any start up tech company. And coding skills to compete for entry-level available jobs. And also described gaps in obtaining these technological skills as they progressed through their post secondary studies. This participant noted, [ reading from slide 29.].
 Aligning with discussions on skills for the future of work several participants describe the role of developing soft skills such as empathy, communication or teamwork. They noted that these were uniquely human skills that can be valued by employers because they cannot be automated.
At the same time some participants describe challenges faced by people living with this ability z and obtaining these soft skills  because often time people with soft skills tend to be saluted especially for more places.
One participant highlighted the concern and steps they took to obtain soft skills. They noted, I will take on sort of advisory positions and that is my way of improving my soccer skills. Which I think sometimes that is also been a challenge for people with disabilities. Because some people with disabilities experience extreme social isolation and then makes it challenging to develop your social skills. Which are honestly in the future of work seem to be bigger than an actual degree.
I think that is also a barrier. So I'm always doing a bit of that as I grow my career. [ Slide 30]
 Aligning with the previous slides post secondary or secondary education described as being critical to obtaining jobs for the future. Yet participants report barriers for building outside the education setting.
Some of these stem from having a disability, for example one reluctant in the past challenges they face at University and how the thought of taking on more skills building initiatives was overwhelming.
 Originally when I went to the university I was planning on doing undergrad. And then training to be an occupational therapist. A few years into the university that just had to go because I could barely finish my BA, I was mush by the end of it so I cannot think about doing other school, now I am mush not anymore [ reading from slide 31].
 Aligning with these earlier themes we found that those working precariously and having the time or predictable he of taking courses outside of work or not being eligible for training that opportunities. On the other hand participants working securely in a white-collar job reported they are more likely to receive an employer provided job skills development opportunity. For example one participant working in a full-time permanent job and the publishing industry noted, [ reading from slide 32].
 And so we heard similar sentiments from those working in similar jobs more likely to report having access to job skills initiatives and in comparing those to those precarious type of jobs were job skills are less likely to be provided and that kind of created this trap that we identified in participants and one that needs to be explored a low bit further. So just based on the themes that emerge from this data there are several study implications that are important to note and can provide some practice and research implications.
 1st, we certainly acknowledge the need to manage the challenges that exist in the present so that young people with disabilities and enter the current working role. At the same time a focus on the present and limit planning for the future or taking steps to anticipate how aspects of the future of work and impact the young person's ability to sustain employment move up within their career. And so disability employment service providers should encourage young workers with disabilities to balance short-term and longer-term perspectives and take steps in their career planning that account for changing nature of work. And finding a job that is secure is a 2nd key theme and can pose an important determinant to success in the future of work is specially for young people living with disabilities. Based on past labour market studies we found that precarious forms are found in the commonplace, and the city working precariously can expose a young person in a working environment that might be more accommodating.
Working precariously can also oppose obstacles that will enable a young person to move up within the careers and compete for those jobs of the future. Indeed additional programming should be focused on creating pathways to secure work arrangements for young people living with disabilities and strengthening social safety nets for those stuck working precariously.
 Aligning with literature on the future of work, digital technologies represented both barriers and facilitators to employment. Employers should take an inclusive design approach to the development and application of digital technologies. To ensure that young people living with disabilities are not disproportionate disadvantage in the future. Interestingly while most purchase bits in our study described technological implications, there is less discretion in how the impact can impact employment. And the future aspect of work or climate change or sentiments as disruptors to the employment.
 Despite technology shaping the future of work, arts of the knowledge that human workers will continue to be achy important element of the labor market. In the soft skills being highly desirable to employers as they look for work and those who have skills that cannot be performed by machines as being those most likely to find work and sustain employment.
 And so young workers with disabilities should consider how they can leverage a market, there lived experience as they are looking for work and aimed to meet the demands and employers with unique skills that are soft in nature. Lastly, we need to enhance skilling initiatives for young people with disabilities to develop both technological as well as soft skills. And Canada I presume in the US a growing discourse on the importance of designing future of work skilling programs. To make sure that labour market is meeting the demand of employers. Developers of these programs should be cognizant of the unique needs of young people disabilities and the different barriers and facilitators they may face in the working world. So as I described in the production of the researchers presented on today is partly archer program of research. As we advance this program of research there is several important scholarly directions we are taking and that will produce more output that hopefully we can share with your team at some point. So in the summer, we completed interview study of a national sample of policy leaders and employment service providers and labour market specialist. Findings from the study have been used to unpack the perspectives on the future of work held by those design policy and programs and the goal is to comp lament the insights that we generated in this research to provide a complete picture of the applications of the future of work for people with disabilities.
 Secondly we are in the midst of a study of diverse knowledge leaders and people living with disabilities on the specific strategies that can be implemented and in community-based educational settings in the present to promote inclusion in the future. Findings from the city will produce applied insight, applied recommendations to address challenges faced by young people living with disabilities. In the spring of 2022 will start a scenario planning process. With our research and partnership team to construct a narratives of the future of work.
For young people living with disabilities and these narratives can be used in combination with other phases of our research process. To inform strategic planning and the implementation of recommendations for policy change and  programmatic development in the future.
I would like to acknowledge the funder of this research work New Frontiers in Research Fund and also acknowledge the Canadian arthritis society which is funding a portion of my salary.
And also I want to acknowledge my transdisciplinary research team which includes research from across Canada as well as United States and internationally who have played a significant role in this research. And lastly I just want to include some of my contact information here and I will be happy for you to reach out if you have any questions that you can't ask during the Q&A  period and I encourage you to follow us on Twitter because we post events and new research that comes out. And lastly if you want to know more about the Institute for work in health I encourage you to log onto our website we have a monthly E alert, orderly newsletter and event notifications we post on our newsletter brick and we have a Twitter account that is active as well as LinkedIn and YouTube will repost different presentations and research findings that we do produce. So that concludes my presentation. So I think we have about 15 or so minutes where folks can ask questions if they have them and I believe I see some chat questions so I will open up to the moderator to coordinate that. 
>> Absolutely so if anyone has any questions I'm trying to see the chat that there might be some things that came directly to you. But if anyone has any questions, go ahead and feel free to unmute and ask Dr. Jetha. 
>> Hello Dr. Thank you for that presentation I really enjoyed it working with individuals specifically in the area of implement is near and dear to my heart. I'm whether you touched on the soft skills because a lot of time we put the cart before the horse and I find out that we need a lot of those soft skills developed and so I'm wondering what the prevalence of pre-apprenticeship activities and apprenticeships for kind of atypical job titles, and just wondering what the prevalence of pre and apprenticeships in Canada looks like for you guys? 
>> DR. ARIF JETHA: That is kind of a two-pronged response and I will align it with the discourse on the future of work. I think one of the biggest priorities that we are trained to figure out in Canada is what we will be the entry points in the labour market for people living with different types of disabilities? What does that look like? Socially with certain careers changing, in the past you would become like a perhaps, grocery store work or working in customer service and perhaps those types of jobs don't exist in more.
The goal is to edify what careers will exist in the future and where can we then work with young people living with disabilities as a placement in a job that meets the demands of the labour market but also can be accommodated and can allow them to kind of move up within their careers. And so there is no easy answer to that and I think it is one that we are all struggling with a little bit. In the past there was a big motivation of like increasing access traits type of jobs. And I think that is still is one of the priority entry points. But as things continue to evolve I think the priorities will change in an example of that is with the COVID 19 pandemic with the past a lot of participants in our research had said to us I had asked for work from home arrangements and I was always denied that accommodation.
And people told me that could never happen. So the pandemic hit and everyone is moving to work from home and everyone had that option available to them and so a lot of the participants in our study were excited by that. And moment it on the fact that in the past they were denied that accommodation. I think that holds a lot of promise then for people who in the past found commuting to work challenging and who had, who required more scheduling flexibility. So this is an example where acknowledging my hold benefits and allow for unique entry points that in the past we might have overlooked. So I guess it is a more nuanced answer. But hopefully that is helpful. 
>> Yes it is and you kind of asked the question I didn't even ask my mentioning the labor trades because I think it's something that we are really trying to pull for I think across the country here in the United States is expanding apprenticeship opportunities beyond your typical labor trades. So in apprenticeship for pharmacy tech and apprenticeship retail. And I think that language is not familiar to a lot of people because we are used to thinking bricklayers, pipelayers because that has been a typical apprenticeship pathway. But I'm hoping that we look at the predictions so they choose a career path that still around in ten years. 
>> DR. ARIF JETHA: That is kind of the point and that is need to hear you acknowledge that someone working in that area and so I think that is a great perspective and important to continue to encourage that thought process, will this job exist ten years from now?
And if you are in a job that seemingly is changing, how do you start from like be where you are then upscale yourself or reskill yourself so ultimately you can pivot and then be as relevant to the labour market? In my opinion some of these while they will create a lot of complexity I think there can be huge opportunities and I think it is up to practitioners and researchers work together to figure out how we can magnify those opportunities and the ways that allow people to excel within their working world. 
>> Thank you that was an excellent question. I was also fascinated by the concept of summary jobs that are around today did not exist then.
So then you start thinking okay so what is going to exist in 20 years and how can we start preparing students in that right direction?
Did your research have any findings on the trajectory of things that we should be working on in terms of skills to develop that? 
>> DR. ARIF JETHA: Yes and if you want I can probably send some research that has been done. There is a huge, there is a huge discourse across all industrialized countries that focus on skills of the future and I think partly because employers are seeing that workers, all workers not just people with this abilities, all workers are meeting what they see as the changing world of work, there is a lot of skills change with regards to technology in regards to soft skills not being met by the current labor market and we are seeing this post-pandemic weather is labor shortage, there is in Canada at least socially in certain areas of the country which are less populated. And so I think a lot of, there is a lot of focus in Canada as well as in other industrialized countries focusing on the topics, I would be happy to send you some of that off-line. 
>> Thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Jetha 
>> Yes I have a question, the job skills gap, what kind of steps is Canada taking to help individuals with disabilities to integrate into the community and fulfill those jobs? 
>> DR. ARIF JETHA: Yes and that is a fantastic question. So I think a significant part of that discussion has focused on the current and existing labour market.
So there is a lot of programming that works with people with disabilities either within educational settings or within the community. And the goal is kind of like the placement and training programs that your team is probably quite familiar with. But I guess one of the questions that I have challenged a lot of the sticklers that I work with is like what are ways in which we can modernize the current programming so that it revolves to the changing world of work and I think there is not enough research both-- or theoretical to bridge that gap but I do know the Canadian government in particular in light of like the growing job shortage and the large number of people with disabilities like one fifth of the population has a disability and a significant proportion of those excluded from the labour market, and that concept of the labour market that can fill jobs and fill job shortages. That has been a focus of the community government is how to make places more accessible and create future schooling programs that are accommodating to needs of people living with disabilities and to show what works and what doesn't but I think there is a lot of innovation going on in the space. Another thing to know in Canada we have signed on to the UN convention on the persons of rights with disabilities and with that our federal government has taken a significant number of steps to agree with branches in the government that are enforcing the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and that has led to a lot of major corporations making their workplaces or accessible and removing barriers to inclusion so that is part of the discussion as well. 
>> Okay thank you. 
>> Other questions for Dr. Jetha? 
>> DR. ARIF JETHA: I apologize to the person who is doing the closed captioning because I have a tendency to talk a bit quick so apologies to them. 
>> Thank you. Any questions? Some comments in the chat saying this is a great presentation. Super interesting discussion, so thank you  Dr.Jetha know it was really interesting to me and there is a lot of new names that joined us today that I don't recognize. So I think that just goes to show that is a really interesting topic and that there were a lot of people that were interested to come in here and everyone stayed so that is always a good sign as well. So thank you and thank you to everyone for joining us, I did put a link to our training evaluation in the chat. If you would take a moment to provide your feedback on that I would really appreciate it and then after the presentation today, if participants will keep an eye out for an email coming from Courtney Lanham that will have some follow-up information in the e-mail. As well as a certificate of participation for those of you that are wanting to be able to document this for your continuing education credentialing and purposes for that.
So as always, the presentation, give us a few days to get it captioned and archived and we will get it uploaded to the CDs website under grounds which is under the education and training section of the website. So if you have heard something today, that you want to go back and follow-up on, you can go back and check that presentation in a few days, and you can also feel free to share with others hey, you missed a great presentation, check it out on the CEDs website within the next few days. So thank you all for joining us and have a great rest of your day. I agree, important subject.