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October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which celebrates the work contributions of Americans with a disability and tries to raise public understanding about the employment difficulties people with a disability often face. In 2016, there were about 5.4 million people with a disability employed in the United States. People with a disability were more likely to work in service occupations than those with no disability (21.3 percent, compared with 17.6 percent).
Occupation | With a disability, total | With no disability, total | With a disability, men | With no disability, men | With a disability, women | With no disability, women |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total employed |
100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
Management, professional, and related occupations |
31.7 | 39.5 | 29.3 | 36.1 | 34.6 | 43.5 |
Service occupations |
21.3 | 17.6 | 18.0 | 14.3 | 25.3 | 21.3 |
Sales and office occupations |
23.0 | 22.1 | 16.4 | 16.2 | 31.0 | 28.9 |
Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations |
9.5 | 9.2 | 16.1 | 16.5 | 1.3 | 0.9 |
Production, transportation, and material moving occupations |
14.6 | 11.6 | 20.1 | 17.0 | 7.8 | 5.4 |
Workers with a disability were more likely than those with no disability to work in production, transportation, and material moving occupations (14.6 percent, compared with 11.6 percent). People with a disability were less likely to work in management, professional, and related occupations than those without a disability (31.7 percent, compared with 39.5 percent).
These data are from the Current Population Survey. For more information, see "Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics — 2016" (HTML) (PDF). To learn more, see our page of data on people with a disability.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Workers with a disability more concentrated in service occupations than those with no disability at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/workers-with-a-disability-more-concentrated-in-service-occupations-than-those-with-no-disability.htm (visited February 17, 2025).