October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and there has never been a better time for businesses to consider hiring people with disabilities.

America is facing a frontline labor shortage. The US Chamber of Commerce reports there are approximately 8.2 million job openings in the US but only 7.2 million people looking for work.

“We hear every day from our member companies — of every size and industry, across nearly every state — that they’re facing unprecedented challenges trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs,” the chamber said.

The good news is that there are millions of qualified, motivated, stellar people with disabilities willing and able — yes, able — to fill those jobs. There are more than 20 million working-aged people with disabilities in the US, and 65% of them are not currently in the workforce.

It’s also good news because study after study shows that companies that hire people with disabilities outperform those that don’t. A 2023 Accenture study of “Disability Champions,” companies that actively employ and support people with disabilities, found that these companies enjoy 1.6 times more revenue, 2.6 times more net income and twice the economic profit.

Companies that don’t hire people with disabilities miss out on employees like Beth, a janitor at the Little Rock, Arkansas, Federal Building, whose work is so thorough that her manager is training others to use her method of tactile cleaning. Beth happens to be deaf and blind.

“I want 10 Beths,” her manager, Trent Thomas, said.

Companies who don’t hire people with disabilities are also missing out on employees like Kristin, who has autism and is an office assistant at IT service provider Sage IT in San Diego, California.

“We use scoreboards to track everyone’s work, and Kristin is always at 100%,” CEO Dave Rysedorph said. “I’ve never seen her not be at 100%.” Rysedorph added that none of his other employees, with or without a disability, can match Kristin’s track record. “She’s kind of a curve-breaker.”

And they’re missing out on teams like the one at RL Liquidators in Sacramento, California, that sort thousands of overstocked products from the likes of Target, Costco and Home Depot every day for palletization in the company’s warehouses for distribution to its retail outlets.

“They’re awesome,” said the warehouse manager, Daniel Pinrose. Like many employers, Pinrose was skeptical that a team with developmental disabilities could perform as well or better than those without disabilities. “I didn’t know,” he said. “These employees are safe, they’ve improved our productivity, the whole mood rises.”

According to research published in the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, the single biggest reason companies don’t consider hiring people with disabilities is “expectations that people with disabilities are unproductive.” That myth has long been busted by employees like Beth, Kristin and the team at RL Liquidators.

But 65% of the 20 million working aged people with disabilities are looking for work. In the face of labor shortages, why not consider a workforce that is eager for the opportunity to prove those productivity myths wrong?

“It’s tough to find people to do this work,” said Michael Pizarro, VP of Operations at RL Liquidators. “It’s exciting for us to see these teams of people with disabilities who want to be here, work hard and do great jobs.”

And by the way, Pizarro himself also has a disability and started out at RL Liquidators as a warehouse worker.

That’s the kind of talent that is waiting for you. I encourage all businesses struggling to fill roles to actively recruit and hire people with disabilities.