SC Biz News: Hire Me SC to hold virtual employment summit

Hire Me SC to hold Virtual Employment Summit

Hire Me SC will be rolling out its annual employer summit online Oct. 7 from 9:30 a.m. to noon to help link employers to resources on building a workforce open to candidates with disabilities.

Keynote speaker Tim Arnold, president and CEO of Colonial Life and Accident Insurance Co., will speak about his company’s integration of disability-inclusive polices into employment practices, and will be joined by other speakers on hiring employees with mental health disabilities, developing accessible workplaces, job instruction and business strategies involving employees with disabilities, according to a news release.

“This isn’t just an important social issue, it’s an important economic issue,” Sandy Jordan, director of employment programs at Able SC, said in the release. “Although people with disabilities make up about 15% of South Carolina’s population, our state has one of the highest unemployment rates for disabled people in the nation. They are twice as likely to be unemployed, and we need to change this for the betterment of our own economy. People with disabilities can work, want to work, and bring valuable skills and talents to the workplace.”

Tickets for the event are $75. Event planners await word on whether the event can be used for Society for Human Resource Management or HR Certification hours, the release said.

According to a state unemployment study from 2019 (.pdf), South Carolina’s unemployment rate for the state’s disabled population is the highest in the nation.

Hire Me SC is a campaign launched by Able SC and the S.C. Disability Employment Coalition to help alter these numbers and make the employment of people with disabilities the norm and not the exception, according to the release.