I'm in the US and honestly a lot of the time I think it's no better here. I've struggled for 20 years to get work and never managed it in spite of having a teaching degree. I think the unemployment rate among the blind in the US is 70 percent.

I'm in the US. I've never had trouble finding work in my industry (software engineer). The fact that I can work remotely helps a. ton.

I am in the US, I am 67 and have recently become legally blind. I was a photographer for 40 years and then I worked as a designer on a club magazine for a small car car club. I had to leave the design job (retired from photography afew years ago) because of the blindness.

I just got a job at a non-profit in Community Outreach. I have no background in social work, but years of self-employment helped me to secure this position. It's not easy to get a job at my age, and in my situation. I know how fortunate I am. I share this story to encourage you to know that it is possible to find fulfilling work, despite the obstacles you might be facing.

Wtih your education and skills, there is a job for you. With technology such as JAWS, you are more than able to read documents and, in my opinion, you are highly employable (in the US, at least).

Don't give up. There is a company that will be lucky to have you.

I'm in the US and I've definitely heard of blind lawyers here.

It's definitely harder to get a job, especially at the entry level, but we also have a lot of organizations and governmental programs to assist people with disabilities with employment, even funding our tech needs.

If you're a lawyer you will have less issues of getting a job in the states with visual impairment. But... The issue is that depending on the position you will have to jump through more hoops. I know might sound horrible - but... I would hold off telling them you are visually impaired as long as you can. I've personally witnessed an employer skip over the blind submission because of that. I was pissed and still pushed them through and they just where a bad interviewer and lost it on their own. I did know a lawyer who was impaired and had a successful career. Suggest you look into the financial sector if possible and also follow up with U.S. light houses on potential careers with them with on site console.

Here in Belgium recently our government mandated quotas for disabled people in civil service, a move I respect and appreciate a lot. The private sector definitely lags behind a lot, though. But I don't really blame them either (running a business with sighted employees is hard enough). I just hope that visually impaired people can use civil service to prove themselves or at the very least can get jobs easily there to get the chance they deserve to add value to society and earn their own wages.
I'm in IT and as long as you don't do consulting the jobs can be pretty accessible.

Here in the U.S, it's not any better...

Sometimes. Although, going through groups such as NFB/AFB in the US helps a bit. I have been working, on and off different jobs as well as working as a freelancer. It's a struggle doing a job search alone, especially if there are resources that are limited. Not many places are going to be accommodating (ex. large print) to the needs of a VI person, from my experience . I have not, seen the unemployment rate lately though. Thank you for the information, Razzretina.

I'm in the US, visually impaired, 39 and on disability now. I lost my job of 8+ years as a digital press operator. My ex-employer wouldn't even consider moving me to another part of the company just so I could stay employed and they could have access to my know-how. Nope, I was treated like anyone else they wanted to get rid of. My last day there was in Feb.

Spent Feb until June looking for jobs, I felt I could do. The problem was, I don't have any desk job experience. I had 1 job lined up and I thought it would work, but it fell through. Other than that, all my other applications were either ignored or rejected. I even attempted to get hired at a local vision rehab center, but they wouldn't take me, either, and they have all types of jobs.

I was approved for disability by the time June came. Now, part of my monthly government check goes to pay back the 6047 dollars I got for unemployment. That was a shitty deal to say the least. I mean, what was I supposed to do for money? And even then, there was no guarantee I was getting on disability at the time. But whatever, I guess.

I know a few blind lawyers here, use to be better friends with one a while back. I am not sure what happened drifted apart. I keep tabs on him on facebook I know a good handful.

Maybe work under a blind person.

I am very newly employed in my position as a dev about 6 weeks now under a blind guy who owns a tiny company who wants to build accessible software and runs a isp. So yeah, very fortunate to get my job and we’re working pretty good fortunately he’s patient. I come more from the IT and testing and that type of environment. I technically didn’t look for this job. It found me.

If you'd have any interest in working with assistive technology, or figuring out what would be necessary to get the word out in Mexico about new assistive technology, then perhaps you and I could have a chat.

There are legal implications to doing business in Mexico, or in any country, and I'd sure like to know something about that well in advance. And of course I don't assume legal advice would be free.

Given the kind of assistive tech we're developing, I needed to get liability insurance in the U.S. But if we sell something like an app that supports Spanish, and if the app is then useful to many more people throughout the Americas, then what other considerations are there? Would we have to review liability law country by country? Is a warning in the app of potential hazards or failures enough? Are there countries in the Americas where we'd have to block sales until we meet some specific requirements?

We have many Spanish speakers here in the U.S., but their use of our tech would be covered by U.S. law. Maybe something in Mexican law could trip us up? I don't know. I don't know Spanish beyond a few words I use in restaurants, but in a past job I did business in Mexico by working with and supporting a distributor in Mexico. That was a very good experience.

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I'm a US attorney, but I switched careers to tech. I'm not sure about Mexico, but in the US there are contract review jobs that I think you can do remote as an attorney.

I worked for a big company for a while. That sometimes helps as big companies can have more willingness to help out, it's not going to kill them to buy you a copy of jaws for instance and if you need a cab they'll book you one. That said I never really felt like I was in control of my life until I went self employed and while you then have to pay for everything yourself, you have way, way more flexibility to negotiate with clients how you want to do things. It's not even seen as unusual, anyone would organise how a job works with a client, and you're doing that as normal, it's just that you're doing it in such a way that it works for you. People barely even notice. That's really helpful. Self employment is not for everyone but if it's something that doesn't put you off, I'd say look at that. Aren't some lawyers basically self employed anyway?

I have a friend who just got a job after many years of being unemployed. He works for or through Lighthouse for the blind (I think) closing out contracts for the military. At the moment he’s working from home due to the pandemic.

I’m in Australia and similar to US, the majority of blind people who want to work can’t get work. It’s extremely discouraging. I think a lot of it is due to a lack of awareness. I’m studying HR, just hoping I can challenge the stigmas

I'm in the US. I've been a massage therapist for 12 and 1/2 years independent and working with other companies. I've always been legally blind and I am headed towards total blindness and being eyeless

I had a blind computer programmer on my local government IT team for years. Great guy. Very productive. Top performer. This was old school coding, though. No drag and drop stuff.

i am in the uk. only 10% of blind people end up getting employment.

Haven't tried to find a job since going totally blind so I can't speak about working under such conditions, but as a person with a congenital visual impairment of only 10% of acuity I never had trouble finding jobs in tech here in Portugal, and that was despite not having even finished high school, which I dropped out of when I found my first job at 17. The thing is: back then my disability did not affect my performance as a programmer since I had enough vision to use a computer like almost everyone else does, so employers and clients didn't gave a crap.

The reason why I'm not looking for a job even though I can still code is because I feel that my dependence on other people in some situations devalues me too much. However I've recently heard about a law forcing companies with 75 employees or more to hire at least 1% of disabled workers that will start being enforced next year for large companies, so there might be an opportunity for me to get hired despite my limitations.