Is being underemployed or struggling to get into a career that pays enough to support oneself, common for people on the autism spectrum?

[Steelbookcollector217]

Don't get me wrong, I don't like to use autism as an excuse all the time, don't like to use it as a crutch, and overall, it's best to not blame it for everything, but my question is, is it normal or just common for people with Autism to be underemployed?

Or to live with their parents, folks, late in life or don't move out of their folks house until later?

Overall, not be financially stable yet or not have a job, career, that pays them well enough to make ends meet?

Just asking because I work at an Amazon warehouse making $20.90 an hour at the moment, and some days of the week, Friday through Sunday, i get paid $22.40 an hour, and I have been stressed and worried about my future lately. I normally work 5 days week. The only jobs, employers i have worked in my life, are at a restaurant, grocery store, and a warehouse. I'm at year number 3 at Amazon, and i previously worked at a grocery store for 4 years. So i'm proud of myself for being able to get and hold onto jobs, even if i have never had a high level corporate professional job, or something in healthcare, office, etc., jobs or careers that require college education, etc.

Because I do still get some financial support from my parents and obviously my folks are not going to be around forever, and that is no doubt a huge source of stress and worry for mine lately.

What do you people here do for work? But overall, is being underemployed or struggling with career, not getting paid enough, common for autism people on the spectrum? I'm open to believe that this is also common for people without autism as well, but i think its a little bit more common for those on the autism spectrum than those who are not right?

 

[Judge]

I didn't know about my autism until much later in life at the age of 55. Now retired.

However I would say without a doubt that it presented difficulty with job interviews particularly in bad economic periods that ebbed and flowed.

As a college graduate I had to take a job (insurance rater) that paid $800 a month, $600 after taxes with the hope of being promoted to a higher paying position in the corporation. My efforts paid off, but I sure had to pay my dues to achieve it. Took a bit longer to establish a credit record, but once I was offered a gasoline card, I took it knowing that my credit rating would get much better.

For me doing a job was infinitely better than interviewing for one.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Yep. A lot of us are on Social Security and food assistance or rent assistance programs.

 

[Outdated]

It's a fairly hot topic where I live at the moment. The government has done some really massive surveys and now they're looking at different strategies they can try and use to alleviate the problem a bit. I'm part of a focus group that's creating a set of online resources for people, at the moment we're working on educational resources for employers that will hopefully remove a lot of the stigma and false information.

As for myself, I was lucky enough to learn a trade. I never got a proper apprenticeship and technically I wasn't allowed to call myself a tradesman, but after my first 2 years I was just too good at the job to be ignored. Highly skilled workers aren't easily replaced and in those sorts of industries skill trumps qualifications in a big way.

Where it fell over for me was with the social relationships that develop in workplaces, I can't play the Hen Pecking Order game and refuse to try, so I changed jobs a lot. And I mean a lot, there's a lot of places where I gave a week's notice at the end of the first week. But tradesmen can do that.

(we aren't reliant on employers for health insurance here, in fact it's illegal here for employers to offer health insurance as an enticement)

By the time I was 20 years old I'd had far more job interviews than many people will have in their life times, I got good at them.

 

[stevens]

As for myself, I was lucky enough to learn a trade.

This is my answer too. I was lucky enough to turn my special interest as a young person into a job as an adult. Getting that job was more or less an accident. I'd like to give myself credit, but after a lot of job searching I found--by accident--an interviewer who didn't know what he was doing and an employer with lots of rules and a union. I write "didn't know what he was doing" was that he didn't see through whatever masking I was able to do and failed to see the autistic person inside. It didn't hurt that my coworkers were, in some cases, weirder than I was. That worked really well.

More than six years later, I went back to college to finish what I'd started and earned two engineering degrees and a business degree. These were the kind of degrees that neurotypical people could print money with, but--you guessed it--not so easy for me. The problems were all social--not the grades. Eventually I found a workaround, which involved a government employer and lots of rules, which people like me enjoy and which also are protective. It didn't hurt at all that the pay was high and there were retirement benefits.

It's no surprise to me that a lot of autistic people are underemployed. When I volunteered at a food bank I met a young man who had a masters degree in chemistry--when I looked him up at the University I found he had graduated with highest honors. He should have been working for 3M or Bayer or something, but he wasn't. He was working for minimum wage at the Food Bank. To me that felt terrible, because by then I realized that my job success had really been a narrow miss of that kind of disappointment.

 

[All-Rounder]

Don't get me wrong due to my literacy I score jobs easily, interviews easily, but they won't keep me once I'm in the job. Be a mix of mental hardships I struggle with, social problems, not being admirable and bullied due to my apparent lacks and lack of cheering up other people than myself, and physical actions not being customary or having a good physical endurance, getting lightheaded and weak.

 

[Shamar]

Don't get me wrong, I don't like to use autism as an excuse all the time, don't like to use it as a crutch, and overall, it's best to not blame it for everything, but my question is, is it normal or just common for people with Autism to be underemployed?

Or to live with their parents, folks, late in life or don't move out of their folks house until later?

Overall, not be financially stable yet or not have a job, career, that pays them well enough to make ends meet?

Just asking because I work at an Amazon warehouse making $20.90 an hour at the moment, and some days of the week, Friday through Sunday, i get paid $22.40 an hour, and I have been stressed and worried about my future lately. I normally work 5 days week. The only jobs, employers i have worked in my life, are at a restaurant, grocery store, and a warehouse. I'm at year number 3 at Amazon, and i previously worked at a grocery store for 4 years. So i'm proud of myself for being able to get and hold onto jobs, even if i have never had a high level corporate professional job, or something in healthcare, office, etc., jobs or careers that require college education, etc.

Because I do still get some financial support from my parents and obviously my folks are not going to be around forever, and that is no doubt a huge source of stress and worry for mine lately.

What do you people here do for work? But overall, is being underemployed or struggling with career, not getting paid enough, common for autism people on the spectrum? I'm open to believe that this is also common for people without autism as well, but i think its a little bit more common for those on the autism spectrum than those who are not right?

I speak for nobody but myself, but the answer is YES. I have always struggled to find work. When I do work, I see less qualified people being promoted above me. This was despite being the first choice for handling the most difficult or remote projects. Things got worse as I got older and age discrimination and being overqualified became a factor.

I never used autism as an excuse. I only learned about autism after I was unemployable.

 

[FayetheAspie]

Yes, getting and keeping jobs are both common struggles for many with ASD.

 

[DrBadStrings]

From what I've read folks on the spectrum are chronically unemployed or underemployed at rates way beyond that of the general population.

 

[Rocco]

It is hard to survive alone on the spectrum. I do electrical work and am a part time eBay seller to pick up the slack when things are slow. There is a ton of social difficulties with my electrical work on bigger jobs with more than 2-3 other electricians.
I know I would get more work, or better jobs if I had better social skills and forged deeper friendships. There is a limit to how much I will change myself to conform though, based on prior experience I know my social limits and no longer push myself too far socially.

 

[Tom]

I wouldn't differenciate between high and low paying jobs. I think any career is in general more difficult for people on the spectrum. But it's hardly impossible. Just more difficult then average and for some much more difficult.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My first position 40 so me years ago paid crap when I retired essentially the same position lots of experience greater education order of magnitude more pay, all I can say if I was not an Aspie would have moved up the ranks six jobs changes later ended back where I started, how ever recognized as world class at doing it. Retired now with pension, but satisfied I gave all I had. Changed positions upgraded education. My under study is now a manager. At least I trained him well.

 

[Mono]

I could never balance my private life with the work I really loved, which also happened before I got my diagnosis. Had 2 burnouts because of it. I guess now you could say I'm underemployed, it does feel that way at times. But my current job is also a safe one where my diagnosis is known and I'm sort of 'protected'. My boss is as well, should I ever get sick (I hardly ever do) they don't have to pay me. I don't know how to translate it, but I think our government takes care of that temporarily, should I get sick. It was to make it more appealing to them to hire me some 5 years ago.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

It definitely is common, so don't feel as though you are alone with that.

I am a very academic person who is extremely interested in a wide variety of topics, so I did very well at school and went to university and now will have a good job. That sort of stuff was always my safe place.

Especially during university time though, when I lived alone, I noticed that I struggled a lot with managing my own household. My place was a huge mess, until I'd have a meltdown and my partner helped me (by helping and giving me clear instructions) to clean up. That would repeat itself every 2-3 months. I got overwhelmed by paying bills. I always bought the same groceries and while my diet wasn't that unhealthy, it was rigid. I was burnt out at the end of uni and relied on my parents to help me financially so I was able to take some time off before starting to work. Now I'm coping quite well, but I have to say that my partner helps me and accommodates me. I wouldn't say that he takes care of me, I try my best to keep up with my share of the tasks, but sometimes I can't, and then he picks up the slack. Some days I can only lie in bed and read (my special interest), or I am on the verge of crying all day because every sound hurts.

What I'm saying is: Most of us need help in some way or another, also those who to the outside seem to have it together very well because they have a "good job" and don't live with their parents.

Don't feel bad about yourself, you sound like a hard-working person and can be proud of everything you've achieved.

 

[jsilver256]

Yes, although the unemployment rate is more like 40% rather than 85% that is commonly quoted.

I'm a software engineer, but not the traditional kind. I'm an industry specialist. I hyper-optimize libraries for very specialized use cases related to ML. It is kind of like being a professor, except getting paid more.

I recently visited an AI research university in Europe. It's a stereotype that researchers and professors are ASD, and from what I've seen, it might be true.

 

[blitzkrieg]

Yes, although the unemployment rate is more like 40% rather than 85% that is commonly quoted.

I'm a software engineer, but not the traditional kind. I'm an industry specialist. I hyper-optimize libraries for very specialized use cases related to ML. It is kind of like being a professor, except getting paid more.

I recently visited an AI research university in Europe. It's a stereotype that researchers and professors are ASD, and from what I've seen, it might be true.

85% is commonly quoted and is more accurate a figure than 40% for autistic unemployment rates.

Around or more than 50% of autistic folk are level 2 or level 3 in terms of functioning and the employment rate is close to zero for those groups.

Level 1 autistic folk still have a hard time gaining employment, because even when able technically - social skills deficits hold people back from getting decent jobs and getting through interviews and navigating the social sphere of many jobs, and so on.

In the UK, according to the National Autistic Society, only 22% of autistic folk are in any kind of employment. Source:

New shocking data highlights the autism employment gap

 

[Outdated]

From the Australian Bureau of Statistics. (data is 7 years old now)

Employment

Participation in the workforce is important for social inclusion and economic independence, but people with autism spectrum disorders may encounter barriers to entering the labour market.

The labour force participation rate was 40.8% among the 75,200 people of working age (15-64 years), living with autism spectrum disorders. This is compared with 53.4% of working age people with disability and 83.2% of people without disability.

The unemployment rate for people with autism spectrum disorders was 31.6%, more than three times the rate for people with disability (10.0%) and almost six times the rate of people without disability (5.3%).

4430.0 - Disability, Ageing and Carers, Australia: Summary of Findings, 2015

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

With nobody, including myself, recognizing my autism as I went through life, little concession was made for me. I was made to understand early on that my goal was to be independent and self sufficient, so even as I struggled at times, especially socially, in my career failure was not an option. I sometimes worked day jobs and in summers during University worked in the auto plants. That gave me an inkling of what a life of unskilled labor would be like. Happily I had a good fit in the sciences and when learning I was able to quickly apply my knowledge. I became skilled in things like statistics applied to Quality Engineering and happily found my niche. I know many ND are not so fortunate and I do not know what to credit my relative success. Was it not knowing of my autism until retirement? Was I good at masking? From my poor social skills probably not. Was it just a stubborn streak that kept me focused at putting one foot in front of the other to make progress?

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

yeah, i also wouldn't know if it is possible for me to be eligible to apply and receive social security benefits, social security income, even if it is just a few hundred dollars a month, one of my friends, he has a job, he works at a Vet place but as a janitor, cleaner, but he told me receives $100 a month as part of his social security benefits.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

When I lost my job unable for a time to get another. I relied on wifefare and unemployment benefits. DId not know being autistic was also issue. Older brother lost position mid thirties unable to get reemployed remainder of his life.
We knew he was wierd, Looking back no realize his Autism was the cause. In my opinion a loss to society he was a genius.