Judy Hall's voice fills with emotion as she watches her son proudly pose with a certificate marking 10 years of permanent part-time service (17 years including contract work) at a retail outlet in Burnie, Tasmania.

Her son - 40-year-old Clinton - unpacks boxes at Target so fast the rest of the team struggles to keep up with him. He hates finishing his shift if there's still work to do. He is an instant hit with people he meets. He also has Down syndrome.

Gerald Hall, Clinton's father, said the journey to a stable, fulfilling job had been "hard work", including an ill-fated stint as a gardener.

"He took a long time to learn he's got to obey instructions," Mr Hall said.

"When he was gardening, he wandered away and went up on a roof and he fell through the Alsynite.

"There was boxes of machinery everywhere and one box of linen - he landed on the linen."

"Yep," Clinton laughed.

"Then he worked at the Wynyard Spencer Hospital in the laundry, washing and ironing," Mr Hall added.

"He's pretty good at folding actually, but there was nowhere for him to go there."

"It was horrible," Clinton said with glee.

"Clinton, that's enough," Mr Hall interjected, fondly.

In 2003, not long after his laundry work, Clinton managed to land a job at Target through his disability employment provider.

When the service folded in 2010, Target took Clinton on in a permanent/part-time role.

For the Halls, money is not the focus, but they have been saving Clinton's earnings for years.

"He's got a lot of money," Mrs Hall said.

"He has a bit of expenses in private health and he goes out and spends a bit on a Wednesday on a counter meal, and they go swimming and they go ten pin bowling - I think he knows everybody in Ulverstone Wynyard."

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Mr Hall said they had set aside the money for Clinton's future.

"When we're not here - dead and gone - he's got to go somewhere," he said.

"I don't like the group homes," Mrs Hall added.

"He's going to his brother in Western Australia.

"It's awful (thinking about the future, you lay awake at night. You think, what are you doing, are you doing the right thing?

"Hopefully we're here for a bit longer ... but he's certainly lucky that he's got the job and still got the job ... It's a wonder he's still got the job - you can say that in the story."

The Halls said they couldn't have done it without Clinton's support worker, Michelle from EPIC Assist.

"It's amazing really, and we can't speak highly enough of the Target, the other team members and the managers," Mrs Hall said.

"It's given him independence, he would have driven us mad otherwise. And we would have driven him mad."