TORONTO - A growing percentage of people living with disabilities are finding work, representing the largest increase in the employment rate among Canadians, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.

The latest data released Thursday from the Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS) found that between 2001 and 2006, the employment rate for people with disabilities rose from 49.3 per cent to 53.5 per cent.

In comparison, the employment rate for people without disabilities increased from 73.8 per cent to 75.1 per cent over the same five-year period.

In absolute numbers, that translates to 339,590 more people with disabilities working by 2006, compared with 874,960 more people without disabilities, according to Statistics Canada.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for people with activity limitations saw a decline, dipping from 13.2 per cent in 2001 to 10.4 per cent in 2006, narrowing the gap by roughly one-third with those without activity limitations.

Canada's economy during the five-year period -- which was strongest among all G7 countries -- likely accounts for the increase in the labour force, both for individuals living with and without disabilities, said Statistics Canada analyst Andrew MacKenzie.

"As the labour market got tighter and it became more difficult for employers to be able to attract employees, we suspect that the employers became more open to being flexible in terms of the work arrangements that people with disabilities may need," MacKenzie said Thursday from Ottawa.

While the severity of the individual's disability had a major impact on a person's ability to participate in the labour force, more than one-quarter of people with severe or very severe disabilities self-reported that it did not completely prevent them from working.

Severity of a disability can be seen as either a combination of minor limitations in different areas, like someone who has difficulty hearing and seeing, or can be one very severe limitation, like someone who is completely blind or can't leave home due to an activity limitation, MacKenzie said.

"We did notice that there was more availability of assistive technology and the accommodations that people with disabilities required, but it was also very situational as well," he said.

"The people with more severe disabilities, they tended to have office jobs where they didn't require a lot of physical strength or mobility to be able to perform their duties, because we also did find people with mild or moderate disabilities that were completely prevented (from working), and these tended to be very physical jobs, like a lumberjack."

MacKenzie said they do have data on the types of jobs, but because there's such a wide variety of occupations, industries and categories, they didn't have space in the report to go into detail.

The work was typically non-physical labour, such as retail, administrative or office work, while those in more physical jobs within sectors like farming, mining and forestry tended to do work requiring a lower level or physical strength or mobility, MacKenzie said.

A large proportion of people with disabilities were working part-time compared to the non-disabled population, but MacKenzie said he didn't have the exact figures readily available.