Capable, qualified, and working-age (18-65) autistic adults experienced an 83% unemployment rate in the United States in 2017 resulting in extreme poverty and severely decreased quality of life. Research dating from 1957 to 2016 inferred hiring agents’ beliefs were the cause. In this multiple regression study, the nature of the relationship between hiring agents’ beliefs and their selection of qualified autistic candidates was explored through Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior to determine what hiring agent’s beliefs, if any, influence the selection of qualified autistic candidates to fill open positions. I used the Hiring Agent Survey Regarding Selection of Qualified Autistic Candidates to anonymously gather data from hiring agents throughout the contiguous United States. Known values of the independent variable, the beliefs influencing hiring agents, were summed and clustered against the TPB-predicted, percentage-based, continuous-level dependent variable, which was hiring agents’ selection of qualified autistic candidates. This statistically significant regression analysis, F(45, 73) = 36.067, p < .001, adj. R2 = .930, predicted the degree to which each control, normative, and behavioral belief influenced hiring agents’ selection. Hiring agents’ desire for mandated comprehensive organizational diversity, along with their negative stereotypical associations and fear of embarrassment, signify a need for substantive policy and strategic interventions. Results of such aggressive diversity initiatives could considerably improve the nation’s socioeconomic health and substantively increase autistics’ quality of life.
Hiring Agents’ Beliefs: A Barrier to Employment of Autistics
