Trans people are more likely to be unemployed than LGB people and the majority population. There is also a high proportion of trans people in the survey who report being outside the labour force due to long-term health problems. These figures are significantly higher among trans people who also belong to another minority group, the largest group in the survey being trans people with disabilities followed by trans people with migrant or ethnic minority backgrounds.
Exclusion from the labour market can have serious economic consequences. Many of the trans respondents in the Nordic countries have experienced severe economic vulnerability, such as homelessness. In Sweden, 38% of trans women surveyed have experienced some form of homelessness, one of the highest rates across the EU in this category. Another alarming finding is that 10–22% of young trans people in Denmark, Finland and Sweden have experienced homelessness.
Many trans people have experienced discrimination in recruitment processes. Among trans women, 22–33% of the respondents stated that they felt discriminated against when looking for work.
About 90% of trans women, trans men and non-binary trans people in Denmark, Finland and Sweden said they did not report the most recent incident of discrimination they experienced. The most common reasons for this were feeling that nothing would come from reporting the incident, that it was not worth the time or that they would not be taken seriously.
A high percentage of trans respondents have experienced general negative attitudes towards LGBTIQ people at work in the past 5 years. Non-binary trans people stand out in particular. In the included Nordic countries, 66–80% of the non-binary respondents state that they have experienced negative attitudes towards LGBTIQ people at work.
The overwhelming majority of trans respondents have in some way hidden or disguised their trans identity at work. This was slightly more common among non-binary trans people and trans men than trans women. In several of the groups, up to 80% of respondents stated that they had hidden or disguised their trans identity in some way.