LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Limitations

We were not sure who would identify as a ‘Discouraged Job Seeker’ as we found little research to guide us. We therefore approached a wide variety of people to participate in the research and a wide variety of people participated. However, we recognize that we did not cover the full range of potential participants in King County. Therefore, we also recognize that we may have missed identifying barriers that are significant to assisting discouraged job seekers in King County.

We did not interview anyone:

• For whom child care was a major barrier,
• Who was from a visible minority,
• For whom English was a second language,
• Who were completely house bound,
• Who needed cultural or religious accommodations

We also did not interview the number of people that would allow us to confidently say our conclusions were derived from a wide variety of people with disabilities, e.g., no one self-identified as having epilepsy, cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome.

Recommendations

All of our interviews varied in length. Those that were done in two rather than one session were unsurprisingly the longest and richest interviews. In hindsight, were the research to be conducted again we would suggest extending the interview portion to include two or more sessions per participant.

In terms of how to conduct similar interviews in the future we learned that: 1) people with brain injuries may need breaks and several attempts to complete an interview process similar to ours, 2) people with affective disorders such as autism may need interview questions presented in a different manner, and 3) those with literacy issues and developmental delays may need very plain and clear language. We became appreciative of some of the daily challenges many of the participants face simply to understand what is being asked of them. Additionally, we interviewed participants in our environment: conducting interviews in environments participants identify as “safe, and ours” needs to be considered.

There is a clear description available in the literature of the Discouraged Job Seekers’ relationship to employment. There is not a clear description of why they have withdrawn, what their subsequent relationship is to employment and how that affects them.

We found common themes in all people we spoke to regardless of the grouping they would traditionally have been associated with, e.g., mental health consumers, socially isolated, being unsatisfied with the employment services they have accessed, etc. We are confident in saying the group we spoke with who self-identified as Discouraged Job Seekers exhibit similarities in terms of how they became Discouraged Job Seekers, what they perceive as barriers, and the personal difficulties they face. We recommend exploring the similarities of the group of people that self-identify as Discouraged Job Seekers.