Employment profiles of autistic people: An 8-year longitudinal study

Autistic adults experience high rates of unemployment, yet research investigating what predicts employment success produces inconsistent results. By utilising longitudinal person-oriented analyses, this study aimed to identify employment trajectories of autistic adults to better understand what may predict stable autistic employment. Participants were 2449 autistic adults (1077 men, 1352 women, 20 non-binary, M = 42.25 years, SD = 14.24), recruited via the Netherlands Autism Register. Latent class analysis utilising employment status across eight annual waves was used to identify longitudinal employment profiles. Fit indices and the interpretability of results indicated a four-class model best fit the data, with profiles reflecting stable unemployment (n = 1189), stable employment (n = 801), early unemployment increasing in probability of employment (n = 183) and high probability of employment reducing across time to low employment (n = 134). Multinominal analyses suggested that compared to the ‘stable unemployment’ group, membership in the ‘stable employment’ profile was predicted by fewer autistic traits, lower age, male gender, higher education and diagnosis age, and fewer co-occurring conditions. Higher education predicted both other profiles, with lower age and fewer co-occurring conditions predicting membership in the increasing employment class. Taken together, findings highlight the utility of person-oriented approaches in understanding the longitudinal challenges autistic adults experience maintaining employment and identifies key areas of support.