Provide me with an accurate figure showing AS unemployment

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I would like to know if there is an accurate figure that shows how many people with aspergers there are who are unemployed.



Please post a link if you find one.

There are no accurate figures on just how many Adult Aspies there are, since no one in the school system was even looking for it pre-1994, and there are still lots and lots of folks who've never even heard of it, much less realized they may have it (though almost anyone who reads the symptoms would know immediately if it applied to them). So I doubt there's any way to know for sure. Someone might be able to compile stats on currently diagnosed adult ASers and their work histories, but I kinda doubt anyone's done it yet. I would like to have that info myself. I suppose the best way to obtain it would be to poll Asperger folk online with a list of specific questions.

I remember coming across a figure once that claimed that 94% of people with aspergers were unemployed. But I've also read in a book that most people with aspergers are employed, so I'm just kind of confused. I started a thread here a few weeks ago asking people if they were employed or unemployed, and most turned out to be employed. This could be due to the fact that these people here at wrongplanet have computers though since they are earning some sort of income.

Other interesting questions are:
-How many people with AS are employed below their skill level?
-How long does a person with AS stay at a job, on average?
-What percentage of employed aspies work full-time and what percentage work part-time?
-What is the average income of aspies of different demographics?

According the book born on a blue day, 12% of people with aspergers in the uk are employed full time but I don't know his source for that.

I'm sadly unemployed. I don't know if I can give good feedback in this post. At my last job I had a really bad melt down. I can't exactly remember except for the overwhelming sensation that day when my boss was giving me multi-task work that needed to get done. I do remember my heart racing and the cold sweat. From there, I don't know what happened and it's not the first time that's happened at a job. It's happened a pretty good number of times. What's worse is finding yourself in an expensive ambulance vehicle and trying to get out b/c you know you can't afford it. I don't know if mine has to do with AS or not.

I also have problems with coordination and clumsiness. When I worked as a dietary assistant at a residential place, I had problems running into things when I was in a hurry and spilling food and coffee all over everything because I couldn't keep my hands stable. I've always had this problem. What's worse was getting confused about instructions when there was so much going on around me at the same time. It's like I would focus on one thing and not the rest. Also the noises and talking made it hard to hear myself. I'm just glad I didn't spill coffee on the elderly, that would've been a serious problem.

I am currently in Vocational Rehab to find a job that would suit my....I don't want to say it......disability. I really hate thinking I have a disability but I don't know what these awful quirks are exactly. It's not fun for me not to mention health insurance. As for the post above me, I live with my dad and I guess he was able to afford a computer. I'm glad or else I wouldn't have ever found a site such as this for support.

I really didn't think it was AS at the time I was working these jobs. In fact, I really didn't know I had AS until I was diagnosed 2 years ago. I'm not going to just rule it out, but I really relate to the topics concerning some of the weird neurological whims of AS. I also would like to add not getting social cues with the ppl I was working with. These strange struggles were hard for me to describe until I got on this site.

A final thing I'd like to add is I don't think everyone with AS fits all neatly in a box since it's been categorized in a spectrum of autism. There's high functioning to low functioning levels of autism. I too have seen aspies post about their careers and how they're doing on their own.

There are actual research studies that have numbers. If you want the dirt, go to a university library and have the librarian show you how to do a search in research journals. Szatmari et al comes to mind, plus a paper by Lorna Wing and colleagues. I used to have a bunch printed off, but I recycled them a few years ago. The range seems to be 5-10% except for Szatmari, which did a followup and only found data for a subset of their original sample (but their employment rate was higher).

On all of the important questions about our lives, there seems to be no information.

Nothing seems reliable when disnostic criteria change, and most reports are done for the purpose of fund raising, grants, and have their own agenda.

Of the numbers thrown out, Autism is said to be 1 in 150, but that has to be children Dxed in the last ten years. It is a total disability number.

An English group said that group was 5% of all ASDs, with 95% being functioning AS.

7 to 10% of the population seems reasonable. That is 30 milion in the US. Most seem to just get by.

No doubt it has stood in the way of advancement. Just as no doubt isolated social failures lead in the computer taking over.

So what fields do we do well in, and which should we avoid, is a question.

Background directs, a bad home life brings anybody down. The educational level of the family, income, will have a strong effect on outcome.

AS is just one more problem of life.

My method has been to seek high value labor hours on my own. Being good at study and spatial relationships, I repaired cars and computers. Economics was in there, so I bought cars, repaired and sold them. Now I publish books, prints, and for my time, I do well.

I am still the guy who keeps the machines running, but now I get their output.

Many small business was started because the person did not fit in. Machine shops, motorcycle shops, and the repair and calibrating of instruments, musical instrument repair, are AS.

To give myself a raise, I have to think of something new to add. Some people with no social skills, have done nothing else, and it has grown huge. Some very large businesses had an AS founder.

As emloyees, I hear life is not so good, dealing with aliens and all. A low income, high cost of living, equals stress, and since a good percentage of NT's make their living as sharks, and we fail to see the differance, the sharks are smiling at us, real people look perplexed.

So where you are, makes all the differance.

The good end of AS life is highly skilled, independent, self reliant. When defined by others that same group are obsessive, isolated, loners, anti social, self centered, and greedy. Add intolerant and violent, that fits me. I hardly use the last, but my love of shark fin soup keeps the area clear.

I would say that in any job with four NT's, and guess who the next person to be let go is.

We can stay on the bottom rung forever, used for a year or two, which has been the drive to self employment. Up until Wrong Planet, I had never heard of it, thought I was the only one, so did what worked for me. Now I am told I am a social cripple, and still think no, I just do not like them.

I understand people only too well, they are not likeable, will only act "To be on the side that's winning."
They lack values, intelligence, drive, so they quickly turn to deciet, lies, theft, slander, to prop up their misrible existance.

Develop a skill, find a defendable place, understand that anyone who acts friendly is a shark looking to feed on you, and you can do well.

Now that we are a group, I see that we can do more. I support the businesses of several people I met here. We do need to explore living and employment from our point of view. If we are going to be marginilized, we had better work together, for no one else is going to save us.

Don't wait around for Doctor Psychobabble to make a study, life is today.

There can't be an accurate figure. The best adjusted aspies don't know that they are aspies.

Any results you get will be severely skewed.

Seems like to me there are lot of aspies who are employed and lot of aspies who aren't employed so it's half and half.

Well, the best I've found is 40% for the highest of functioning individuals, the worst is 0%; this was taken from a book that included all outcome studies [of Asperger's and autism].

Also of note in the same book, the figure of "aspies" who complete college is far less than the normal population, which actually disproves some commonly held beliefs of Asperger's (I forget what the percentage was).