Tech employers are finally recognising the amazing abilities of people on the autistic spectrum, and why they might’ve been missing out.

Michael Barton, writing for Alphr.com, presented the public with a sobering thought: ‘With employers, I’ve always found there’s a large social bias towards the interview process,’ he said. ‘People naturally want to hire people they’ll get on with, who are similar to them. However, with autistic people, because they don’t have that social prowess, it can put them at a disadvantage.’

But now, even communication can be aided through the use of technology. Alphr refers to a recent candidate who could not converse competently until he was handed an iPad.

“It seemed like the young man didn’t have anything going on, didn’t know what to say – but actually it was just because he wasn’t communicating in the way we wanted him to communicate: with speech and language” said Barton.

And companies like Microsoft are already actively progressing the diversity of their workforce. When asked why, Dave Coplin, envisionment officer at Microsoft said; “We thought, well ‘the skills they have far outweigh the accommodation difficulties we’d have –why would we exclude these people from our workplace?’”

The value of diversity is now far more important than relativity in the major workplace. And with a shocking 85 per cent unemployment rate in autistic people, it is now the time more than ever to start accommodating and relishing the talents these people possess.