Thank you very much for having me here this morning.
I've been a Tim Hortons franchisee now for the past 21 years. In that time I've employed 145 people with disabilities in meaningful and competitively paid positions. This is every type of disability in every area of my business, from entry level right up to my management team.
What I have discovered is that when we build the capacity of people with disabilities in real jobs for real pay, we create an economic boom for our business. There is a clear business case for being an inclusive employer. Yes, it's the right thing to do, but when we talk about it being the right thing to do, business owners tend to ignore that. What we've discovered is that by building capacity and by including people in real jobs for real pay, we are creating a safer workplace. We are creating a more innovative workplace. We are reducing costs by reducing employee turnover, and much more. There is a clear economic case for being an inclusive employer. I'll give you one brief example.
In my sector, the quick-service sector, the average turnover rate for employees is about 100% to 125%. That's typical, and that's normal for a well-run operation. In my group of six restaurants, for the past 10 years my turnover rate has been under 40%. The only thing I'm doing differently from my colleagues and friends in Tim Hortons across the country is being an inclusive employer.
Typically, people with disabilities don't leave. It took them so long to find that job that they stay with you for a long time, but more profound is the effect that it has on those employees who do not have a disability. I have 200 employees without a disability today, and I have 46 who do. Of the 46 who have a disability, none left last year. That's great. Of the 200 who don't have a disability, the turnover rate last year was 55%. It's still half the norm. Why is that?
If you look at the demographic of disability across the country, 15% of us have a disability. That's equal to the entire population of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta combined. It's a big number. But it's even more profoundly larger were you to add in the direct family members of those people with disabilities; we are now at 53% of the Canadian population. I have 14,000 customers a day walking into my six Tim Hortons stores, and 7,000 of them are directly affected by a disability.
However, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities still remains extremely high, some believe as high as 70%, with a participation rate of around 18% to 20%. Why is that?
It's because employers, hiring managers, and CEOs are still buying into a series of myths and misperceptions. It's the great fear they buy into that, if they hire people with disabilities, they will work slower, take more sick time, require more supervision, require expensive accommodations, and be less innovative. As I have proven, the opposite is true. It's simply good for business.
If we look at the demographics across the country today with students, students leaving school, 447,000 Canadians with a disability have graduated in the last five years. Those 447,000 have never worked a single day. There are others who have graduated and who have found work, but 447,000 have not found work in the last five years, and 270,000 of those have a post-secondary education.
It's a massive talent pool. It's a massive group of talented potential workers that, today, employers are largely ignoring. They're ignoring them because of fear, the fear of hiring people and having to pay large accommodation costs, which simply is not true. Sixty per cent of employees don't need accommodation at all, and 35% need an accommodation that would probably cost an average of about $500 or less.
Thank you.