Readers can see that I am interested in the issue of un/under-employment of individuals on the Spectrum. The more I ask people about this, the more evidence I see evidence to support the 80%+ un/under-employment statistic for individuals with ASD.
With that said, I do believe there are people who are making headway on this issue. For instance, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, famous for it's work in nuclear weapons research (among a host of other cool things since the 50s) has been working diligently for the last couple years to develop a "school-to-job pipeline" for ASD individuals. I have been following this program since its inception and interns get to work in many different areas including cyber-security, huge lasers, and space exploration. This is a great article on the program's progress:
What successful programs and endeavors like the one at LLNL are finding is that getting ASD high schoolers ready to be career people takes modest investment and expertise, but tends to yield huge dividends as these individuals settle in to their careers and get productive. The program at The Lab is definitely one to watch.