Is AI increasing the disability hiring divide?
Companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to screen job candidates, but how might this trend create bias in the hiring process, particularly for applicants with disabilities?
Microsoft and Kessler Foundation recently announced that OCAD University’s Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) has received a joint planning grant from both firms to investigate the issue of AI screening bias in a project titled, “Optimizing Diversity with Disability.”
Part of the funding was awarded by Microsoft’s AI for Accessibility, a philanthropic program aimed at harnessing the power of AI to amplify human capability for the more than one billion people around the world with disabilities. The program helps developers, NGO’s, academics, researchers and inventors to accelerate their work for people with disabilities, focusing on four key areas: the home, employment, education, and community.
The other grantor, Kessler Foundation, leads the nation in funding innovative programs that expand opportunities for employment for people with disabilities. The Foundation is a major non-profit organization in the field of disability, and a global leader in rehabilitation research that seeks to improve long-term outcomes -- including employment -- for people with neurological disabilities caused by diseases and injuries of the brain and spinal cord.
Employers across Canada are currently missing out on the phenomenal range of abilities and skill sets candidates with disabilities have to offer. The one-year grant will support the IDRC’s research to identify how to improve the use of AI recruitment technology in order to make the hiring process more equitable, accurate and transparent.
“AI hiring apps that are frequently biased against employee diversification and applicants with disabilities are now deployed in more than 50 per cent of organizations. This leads to employee monocultures and increases the already high unemployment rate of individuals with disabilities who are ready to work,” says Dr. Jutta Treviranus, Director of the IDRC.
According to the Government of Canada, 59 per cent of Canadians with disabilities, aged 25 to 64, are employed compared to 80 per cent of Canadians without disabilities in the same age range. The COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened this disability divide.
In July 2019, the country's Accessible Canada Act came into effect, in a step towards a greater recognition of the importance of workplace disability inclusion.
The work of the IDRC continues this momentum and is part of a growing global community that proactively works to ensure that our increasingly digitally transformed world is designed inclusively. Through research, consulting, and training, the Centre identifies risks and catalyzes opportunities for equitable inclusion when new technical systems, such as AI-powered hiring systems, emerge.