New initiative to enhance workplace capacity to employ youth with disabilities in construction, building trades, and manufacturing sectors

October 1, 2025 (Toronto, Ont.)—A new multi-year project is underway to help workplaces in Canada’s construction and manufacturing sectors retool their systems to better include youth with disabilities—especially neurodiverse youth, youth with intellectual disabilities and youth with mental health challenges.

The project, co-led by Inclusive Design for Employment Access (IDEA) and the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources (CIRHR) at the University of Toronto, will focus on reshaping workplace systems to build the capacity of workplaces to employ persons with disabilities—a departure from past approaches that focused on skilling up the individual workers. 

“It can be difficult for youth with learning disabilities, ADHD, neurodiverse identities, intellectual disabilities, and mental health challenges to secure high-quality employment,” notes Dr. Emile Tompa, Executive Director, IDEA and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH). “At the same time, the constructions and manufacturing industries have many high-paying career opportunities, yet, over the past decade, they have experienced labour shortages. Increasing the disability confidence of employers in the construction and manufacturing sectors will facilitate advancing capacity for talent acquisition, retention, and promotion within this untapped population of youth with disabilities."

Funded by the Government of Canada’s Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program (YESS), the new project, “Transforming Workplace Systems to Build Sustainable Capacity for Inclusion of Diverse Youth,” will receive $4.44 million over 38 months, from February 2025 to March 2028. 

“With the need for greater youth employment opportunities, our government is helping young Canadians get ahead by connecting them with the employment and skill-building programs they need to successfully launch their careers,” said Leslie Church, Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretaries of State for Labour, for Seniors, and for Children and Youth, and to the Minister of Jobs and Families (Persons with Disabilities). “Funded through the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, this new project will create stronger supports for youth with disabilities, potentially serving as a model for similar programs nationwide."

Building on previous work done within IDEA, a systems-level framework will be developed to support sustainable change by applying a disability lens to organizational policies, processes, and procedures. An organizational pulse-check tool based on the framework will help establish baseline disability confidence levels and guide the identification of resource gaps within the construction/building trades and manufacturing sectors.

Innovative and high impact workplace solutions will be identified (where they already exist), developed, and tested to fill knowledge and practice gaps. A platform and resource hub for employer tools and resources will be created to help employers navigate the offering of tools and resources that they need to enhance their disability confidence.

Over a dozen partner organizations, including Inclusion Canada, Autism Alliance of Canada, and Youth Employment Services (YES), are committed to help workplaces put the findings from this research into practice to advance capacity for inclusion and accessibility through systems-level change.

“By leveraging CIRHR’s networks and research expertise, we’re ensuring that solutions are grounded in evidence and co-developed with industry partners.” notes Rafael Gomez, Director, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto. 

Project partners will be closely involved in the development, piloting/testing, and scaling of solutions. A successful outcome is that partners will then own and champion the systems approach and promote it across the manufacturing and construction sectors, and beyond.

For more information or to arrange an interview with a member of the IDEA team, contact:

Sabrina Chaudhry
National Manager, IDEA
schaudhry@iwh.on.ca

Therese Salenieks
Operations and Communications Associate, IDEA
tsalenieks@iwh.on.ca

About IDEA

Inclusive Design for Employment Access (IDEA) is a partnered, knowledge-to-practice social innovation laboratory. Its mission is to expand employment opportunities for persons with disabilities by focusing on employer capacity to recruit, hire, onboard, retain, mentor, and promote persons with disabilities across the full range of employment opportunities. IDEA is jointly led by the Institute for Work & Health and McMaster University.