Around 70% - 80% of autistic people are unemployed

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The statistic that 70% - 80% of autistic people are unemployed, does that mean they do not undertake any employment which includes voluntary work ?

The reliability of these claims are dubious, because the percentage of undiagnosed autistic people cannot be known.

True but it is a very high number .
It is a guess .
I am saying does unemployment mean not undertaking paid employment ?

I would guess that government officials would focus on paid employment, or self-employment. Although everyone pays taxes one way or another, working or not, governments tend to define "tax payers" as people with income sources that can be identified and taxed....

The actual number isn't important as it is much higher than the unemployment numbers for other groups of people.

According to recent national surveys in the United States, around 56% of people with Down syndrome are employed, with most holding part-time jobs, and only a small percentage working full-time

In general unemployment statistics focus on the percent of people not doing paid work at a current point. Volunteer work does not count as employment. Plenty of unemployed people including autistics have worked some but do not keep working at their jobs for various reasons & thus are considered unemployed due to them not currently performing paid work.

I know two people who weren't able to do volunteer work.
One would bite others when she was upset. Not acceptable.
The other needed a service dog.

I would say that a much higher percentage of people who are either diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, or would have been had they been diagnosed back when that diagnosis was in use, are employed, although many of those are arguably underemployed or struggle in their work situation.

Unemployed I think does usually refer to working in return for at least some compensation.

We are either unemployed, or UNDERemployed, as in we don't earn as much as our NT peers.

Thought to add that just because there may be a high rate of unemployment with us autistics that does not automatically mean that a high percent of us are not able to have jobs. Some of us struggle to find employment like our first job after getting out of school or finding employment in general but can keep our jobs for a while once we get them. Some of us have periods where we are in between jobs for various reasons but are able to go back to work after a while. Also it's not uncommon for autistics to have comoribid disabilities or disabilities unrelated to our autism. I think the autistics who get officially & unofficially diagnosed are the ones more likely to have other disabilities.

When the US government gives unemployment statistics they they try to pretend that the percent is lower by giving the numbers of people collecting unemployment. That's usually people who worked for a wage/salary & then lost their jobs or got temporarily laid off. The government unemployment figures tend to exclude people who never worked, people collecting disability type benefits, & long-term homemakers.

I realize that I am luckier than I like to admit I am than most other people with ASD because I'm not homeless and can actually afford high-luxury items like food and hot running water in spite of the fact I've never had a real job. Which is utterly shameful and I don't deserve it.

You live in a First World country in which people with disabilities are entitled to benefits because most people don't think people who can't support themselves should starve to death under a viaduct. You shouldn't be ashamed. My son, who is more "severely" autistic than you, gets benefits that provide him a roof over his head, heat in the winter, and food, doesn't think about it because he really isn't capable of putting himself in others' situations. He does work 16 hours per week at a food store but that by itself wouldn't be enough to keep him off the street.

I worked for 5 1/2 years and now am applying for disability because working is bad for my health. Mostly due to the sensory processing issues that come with autism, but other factors as well.

This statistic is not true.

It is not possible to estimate something like that. It's like estimating how many people are unemployed if they have a black dog. We have no way of knowing.

When you hear a fact tossed out like that, immediately look for the source and see where they are getting the figures from.

^ The statistic is indeed true, at least in the UK, judging by the best research into the matter:

Sources:

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/the-buckland-review-of-autism-employment-is-publis

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-buckland-review-of-autism-employment-report-and-recommendations/the-buckland-review-of-autism-employment-report-and-recommendations

There could be just as many undiagnosed autistic people struggling with employment as well as undiagnosed autistic people who get by okay with employment. Just because an autistic person isn't diagnosed, doesn't mean that they are functioning in the same way as the typical NT.