Most employment options are to provide autistics with full-time employment in jobs with limited career advancement opportunities, relying on job coaches’ supervision to substitute for executive functioning and social skills disabilities. This is not sustainable; the salary of autistics will always be limited by having to share these with the coaches while the range of possible jobs will always be limited due to the disabilities. It is also only a matter of time before automated technologies evolve to displace these autistics from their jobs.
In contrast, training autistics to independently engage in freelance work opens up many exciting possibilities. Going freelance is a win-win for everyone:
- Allows autistics to have a flexible work schedule where they can work at their own pace
- Allows autistics to work from home, in a familiar and comfortable environment
- Allows autistics to avoid behavioural and social demands (e.g. office politics) that come with full-time jobs
- Allows autistics to specialise more easily as they can work for multiple employers instead of just one (who may not require many specialised services)
- Allows autistics to set their salary and responsibilities instead of waiting for their employer to recognise their efforts and capabilities
- Addresses employer’s fears that they will be accused of ableism if they let go of autistic staff who do not meet professional or productivity standards
While working freelance seems enticing, unfortunately, the efforts for supporting autism employment are focused on full-time jobs. This may be due to multiple factors:
- Traditional thinking about supporting autistic people is to treat them as factory workers performing standardised work in a physical location
- Perceived job insecurity and uncertainty of freelancing by autistics
- Autistics must develop good executive functioning skills to ensure that good work gets done on time
- Autistics must develop good marketing and customer service skills to ensure that they get customers
- Difficulty of autistics to form a team to offer more comprehensive and reliable freelance services
A commission-based job agency that can work closely with autistic freelancers can help facilitate success as a freelancer:
- Act as a personal assistant to help schedule work tasks and client appointments
- Act as a job coach to guide with planning
- Provide marketing, administrative, legal and technical services
- Match autistic freelancers to support and barter work with each other
- Bill and collect payment on behalf of the freelancers to their clients
As autistic freelancers gain more proficiency, they can use fewer services from the job agency or delegate work to new teammates. This will give them a boost in their income since the amount of commissions they pay will go down.