Consultant Bill Emmett tells a group of Joliet Job Corps Center students that there are employers who actively recruit employees who have disabilities.

There are businesses who want to hire workers with disabilities.

The leaders of these businesses think that these workers can be just as good — if not better — employees as anyone else.

That’s the message shared by Bill Emmett, a consultant for Tangram Business Resourcing and James Emmett and Co., two companies that specialize in disability inclusion. “It is not an act of charity for companies to hire someone with disabilities,” Mr. Emmett told a group of students at the Joliet Job Corps Center on July 20. People who have disabilities can be hard workers who are loyal to their employers and don’t jump from job to job, he explained.

In his job at the Indiana-based Tangram, Mr. Emmett works for Sears and the company’s “Diversity Your Way” project. Sears is one of many companies that recruits workers with disabilities, and the company’s leaders are looking for people to work in the store’s warehouses, stores and a call center in Bridgeport, Ill., he said.

Mr. Emmett told the students about the Tan-gram Workforce Accelerator, a web site that matches workers with disabilities with companies that want to hire them. Although any-one can use the web site, job seekers who indicate that they are disabled have their applications “flagged” and moved to the top of the pile, he said.

The students had plenty of questions during his presentation. Tremaine McKnight wondered if he could use the web site to apply for a specific position in a certain location and Mr. Emmett assured him that it was possible.

“If that spot doesn’t have any openings there will be others,” Mr. Emmett said.

Student Kiara Pittman wanted to know if anyone could use the web site. “If you don’t have a disability, you are welcome to go through the normal avenue,” Mr. Emmett said.