Predictors of competitive employment among people offered individual placement and support supported employment

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) supported employment increases competitive employment for people with disabilities. However, approximately one third of IPS participants in IPS studies do not obtain competitive employment; little is known about why they are unsuccessful. Standard demographic and clinical variables, other than work history, are not consistent predictors. We hypothesized that active participation in IPS services would predict successful employment.

In the Supported Employment Demonstration study, an IPS trial enrolling applicants recently denied Social Security disability, interviewers collected baseline demographic and clinical data. Thereafter, employment specialists administered the IPS participation measure monthly to a subsample of 620 IPS clients to track the number of IPS contacts, active participation in IPS job search, and competitive employment outcomes over 3 years.

Among study enrollees assigned to IPS services (N = 620), 446 (72%) found jobs and 175 (28%) did not. Recent employment history, active participation in IPS job search, and months of IPS job search (p < .001) predicted employment outcomes in both standard bivariate and single-variable logistic regressions. Participation in IPS job search was, by a large margin, the strongest predictor of employment outcomes based on model coefficients of discrimination.

Denied disability applicants who were offered and participated actively in IPS supported employment had four times the odds of finding competitive employment as those who did not participate in job search. Active engagement in IPS, like recent employment history, may indicate motivation and explain why some people assigned to IPS treatment do not find jobs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).