Job search for a mentally ill: is it hard?

Traditionally, people with some minor neurotic disorders do not experience any difficulties whether it concerns the preserving a job or landing it. Nevertheless, people suffering from such psychiatric disorders as schizophrenia or paranoia are often fired without any hope to find a job. And if this is the case, they have to rely either on the mercy of some government programs or simply their friends or relatives.

According to the data provided by National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 85% of people having some serious mental problems are unemployed. I.e., only 30-40% of them may enjoy having a job and being independent to a certain extent at least. And those who feel like trying to land a job, often come across a number of prejudices on part of an employer who doesn’t seem to be eager to hire a person with psychiatric illness and thus having to pay a high health insurance. Apart from this, an employer may have natural doubts as for the performance and attendance.

In some cases the person suffering from one of these serious mental diseases may not be competent enough to say whether they can work or not as they may simply not understand that something is wrong with them. But then the situation is even worse because people like this do not have any means to exist on and have to try to find some job in vain.

So, how difficult is it to land a job? In accordance with a survey conducted, the majority of mentally ill people do their best to hide their illness. 1/3 say they had to leave their job because they have revealed their psychiatric history; and 2/3 gave up the idea of finding a job as they were apprehensive of the unfair treatment. However, Disability Act says that employer should not reject the application of a mentally ill person. But certainly the sky’s the limit for an employer who does not want to hire you. Still, it is advisable not to hide your illness as in case you need some time off your work (if it’s possible in general), it’ll be easier to explain why to your employer. All in all, only 4 out of 10 employers are ready to hire people with mental disorders.

But even if they are hired, these people are most likely to have to work with colleagues who will be simply afraid of working with a mentally inadequate person.

Besides, the scientists have proved that a person with psychiatric disorders experiences stress when doing the job. The situation is aggravated if a person told nothing about the illness in the interview, for example. But even here it’s possible to find some advantages. Thus, for example, the research shows that mentally ill people tend to visit a doctor less often when they are employed than they used to having no job. Moreover, working in a team makes them feel more important and gives an opportunity to communicate more and have some social life.