• What is employer awareness?
• Who can receive Employer Awareness Training?
• Types of work blind people can do

What is employer awareness?

The RNZFB wants to reduce the high levels of unemployment within the blind community by broadening employers' awareness of the benefits of employing a blind, deafblind or vision-impaired worker. The RNZFB's Employer Awareness team covers general blindness awareness training and employer-specific training. This includes:

• Understanding the untapped labour market: blind, deafblind and vision-impaired workers
• Dispelling the myths and stereotypes around what blind and vision-impaired workers are capable of
• Accessing financial and practical assistance that is available to the employer and the employee
• Benefiting from having a blind or vision-impaired person in your workplace.

Who can receive Employer Awareness Training?

Employer Awareness Training is available to employers who have employed or are considering employing a blind, deafblind or vision-impaired person.

Training is also available to employers or employer groups who would like to learn more about the important role they can play in assisting blind, deafblind and vision-impaired people gain meaningful employment.

For more information about this training please contact us at the following email address: employment@rnzfb.org.nz

Employers are also able to lodge any job vacancies they have with us by emailing employment@rnzfb.org.nz - we just might have the person you are looking for!

Types of work blind people can do

Although vision-impaired job seekers have one of the highest unemployment rates in New Zealand, RNZFB members are employed across 80 different New Zealand industries from the farm to the board room: administration, banking, customer service, education, finance, government agencies, health, law, manufacturing and sales.

The thought of employing a person with a vision impairment can be daunting to some employers. We've already come up with a list of the most frequent questions and answers we get asked.

Read our FAQs about employing a blind person.

We have profiles on blind, deafblind and vision-impaired people in employment, study and training so you can see what individual Foundation members achieve.

For blind, deafblind and vision-impaired people seeking or retaining employment the RNZFB offers an employment advice and placement service.