Being disabled no longer means being a second-class worker

Ma Shenying, who suffered visual impairment after her premature birth 32 years ago, majored in music at university and might have ended up working as a piano player or tuner. After graduation, she had a succession of jobs as a performer, saleswoman and spice taster. What she never expected was a career in technology.

A job with a tech firm has changed her whole outlook on life.

"Modern technology opens up opportunities for people like me," Ma said. "Screen readers are available on computers and smartphones, which make work and study easier for people like me and widen our career choices."

Before the advent of such new technologies, most visually impaired people were consigned to learning to read by braille and listening to radio. But now, with podcasts and e-books going viral, visually impaired people can explore a wider world.

Ma is not the only one who is benefiting from modern technology.

In Shenzhen, former masseur Shen Guangrong became a programmer through self-study. He learned three different programming languages and is now an engineer specializing in barrier-free application development.

When he first attempted to study a computer language, he had his family read the textbooks aloud to him and recorded them with a tape recorder. He said he then listened to the tapes and transcribed the texts into braille. When screen readers were popularized, he was able to listen directly to e-books.

His experience was included in a documentary series entitled "The Outsiders."

"It is not easy to find such courses for the visually impaired at school, so you have to be very motivated to keep digging up study materials that you can use," Shen said in the documentary.

Credit: Xinhua

According to Shanghai Disabled Persons' Federation, most of the 130,000 work-age disabled people in Shanghai have jobs of various sorts. Apart from traditional office clerks and production line workers, many have found jobs not usually associated with the disabled, such as programmers, baristas, and graphic designers.

Earlier this year, online food delivery service platform Ele.me said it had more than 3,000 hearing-impaired couriers, and podcast platform Ximayala FM said it employed more than 8,000 disabled uploaders. Even more of the disabled are engaged in e-commerce, running online stores or working as customer service specialists.

Job training for the disabled has also expanded to encompass more fields than ever before. The federation said it will introduce training on drone operation and livestreaming skills this year.

"Take baristas, for example," said Chen Dongyuan, director of education and employment at the federation. "We believe that it is a good way of career building for disabled people. Coffee is popular in Shanghai, so it's a large market. Furthermore, it doesn't require much to become a qualified barista, making it relatively easier for disabled people to give it a go. Currently our district branches are carrying out training on disabled baristas, hoping that they will find a job in the near future."

Credit: Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

While disabled people are making big strides in the workforce, public perceptions of their capabilities have been slower to change.

Ma said she once tried to submit her resume to common recruitment websites but didn't have much success.

"It seems that people are still quite ignorant about what we are capable of doing, and assume we can do only very basic jobs," she said. "Sometimes when employers saw me walking with a 'white cane,' they were immediately dismissive."

She added, "Many people are still surprised that we can use computers or mobile devices, and they don't understand that we are capable of commuting to and from work all by ourselves. Better public understanding would really be very helpful."

According to the current municipal policy, companies may be exempt from paying into employment security funds for the disabled if 1.5 percent of their workforce have disabilities. Further benefits are on offer if they recruit the visually impaired.

However, some companies remain reticent, often citing the effects of the coronavirus pandemic among their reasoning.

One e-commerce company, which preferred to be anonymous, said it was recruiting the disabled until the pandemic broke out.

"You have to admit that disabled employees are more likely to suffer from work-related injuries than others, and barrier-free facilities in an office are a big cost," the company director said. "Three years into the pandemic, we have enough on our plate, so we're not considering hiring disabled employees at the moment."

The federation said it has been keeping an eye on lay-offs of disabled people before and after this year's two-month lockdown in Shanghai.

"We have tried to intervene early if we noticed that certain companies were going to lay off disabled employees," said Chen. "We found as many new jobs as possible for those who were laid off and attempted to give companies more support. Of course, we're always working on improving barrier-free facilities to enhance the mobility of disabled people getting to and from work."