The strong late-pandemic labor market is giving a lift to a group often left on the margins of the economy: workers with disabilities. Companies’ newfound openness to remote work has led to opportunities for people whose disabilities make in-person work — and the taxing daily commute it requires — difficult or impossible, reports the New York Times.
In the past, employers often resisted offering remote work as an accommodation to disabled workers, and judges rarely required them to do so. But that may change now that so many companies were able to adapt to remote work in 2020, said Professor Arlene Kanter, Director of the Disability Law and Policy Program.
“If other people can show that they can perform their work well at home, as they did during Covid, then people with disabilities, as a matter of accommodation, shouldn’t be denied that right,” Kanter said.