Deaf people and the labour market

Abstract

Nowadays, there is increasing evidence that many companies in Salvador have been hiring deaf people. That evidence raises some questions: why are those businessmen contracting them and how efficient are deaf people? In order to answer those questions, we interviewed five managers and five supervisors who work in companies where deaf people work together with normal employees, in charge of the same procedures. There were differences between the managers’ and the supervisors’ answers as far as the reasons for the contracts were concerned. The majority of the managers have a capitalist point of view so most of them said that their companies had contracted deaf people because it increased the company’s profit or because the company was obliged to do it by the force of the law. On the other hand, most of the supervisors think that the companies have hired deaf people with the intention of giving them the opportunity for getting a job. As for their efficiency, most of the interviewed people considered the deaf people equal or better than the normal ones when doing the same tasks. Deaf people have been showing the society their competence for work. It is expected that the businessmen realize the deaf people’s importance and give them the opportunity to prove how capable they are.