MELISSA Howe will never see what her dream home looks like but the blind Deer Park woman counts herself lucky.
New figures show the jobless rate for blind people and those with low vision is five times the national average.
The Vision Australia figures, the result of the biggest survey of its type in Australia, show the unemployment rate for blind or low vision people is 26 per cent compared to the national 4.6 per cent unemployment rate.
Ms Howe, 30, battled a long job hunt and narrow-minded employers before she got a job as a service co-ordinator with Vision Australia.
“Getting this job was the greatest thing,” she said.
“I was able to save to build my dream house, whereas before when I worked casually I could not get a loan.
“People forget that vision impaired or blind people have dreams as well and want to do everything that everyone else is able to do.”
Vision Australia has urged employers in the western suburbs to open their eyes to see what great employees vision impaired or blind people can make.
“When we do get a job we are so happy that we work our guts out to do it properly,” Ms Howe said.
“We are very loyal to our employers.”
The blindness agency’s chief Gerard Menses said many employers only needed to make slight changes to their workplaces to accommodate sight-impaired workers, and many of these changes would cost nothing.
“Blindness is more of a nuisance than a disability,” he said.
“There is no job blind people cannot do with the exception of a bus driver.
“We have clients working in call centres, management jobs, politics, an astronomer and a printing company.”
He said the first thing employers could do was make their application processes easier.
“The survey shows that nearly 40 per cent of applicants had difficulty even just applying for the job because forms were paper based or employers required a driver’s licence, which people with low vision would not have,” he said.
“Sometimes employers only need to change the lighting for a person.
“And they often find when they have altered the business for the employee it opens them up to a whole different range of customers.
“The ageing population finds it easy to navigate the business,” Mr Menses said.
He said it was particularly disappointing that 50 per cent of sight-impaired workers looking for work had been searching for more than a year.
He said people should “hang in there” and consider using the Disability Employment Network or Vision Australia’s employment services.
The survey showed people who used either of those services were 64 per cent more likely to get a job than before.
“The saddest thing is someone who wants to work and who can’t get work,” he said.
