People with disabilities want to work

In relation to the population of Croatia, people with disabilities make up 12 percent, and only 17,000 are employed.

Employers with more than 20 employees are legally required to employ people with disabilities (PWD), which is also socially beneficial as PWD belong to vulnerable groups of the population that do not have the same starting position in the labor market as other unemployed individuals. According to the unemployment records in October 2015, there were 6,850 PWD, which is two and a half percent of the total number of unemployed. In relation to the population of Croatia, people with disabilities make up 12 percent, and only 17,000 are employed. If we add the number of employed to the number of unemployed PWD seeking jobs, approximately 24,000 people with disabilities are actively working. The reason many people with disabilities are outside the labor market is the experience of difficult employment. As a result, many of them who are fully or partially capable of working prefer to accept disability pensions or utilize rights from the social welfare system instead of seeking employment.

There are many reasons why PWD are in an extremely poor position in the labor market – from the limitations of the educational system adapted for these individuals, significant financial benefits that can be obtained from pensions and the social welfare system, which demotivate the desire to enter the labor market, to public and employer prejudices about the ability of people with disabilities to perform various jobs. On the other hand, practice in Croatia and abroad shows that both employers and people with disabilities have multiple benefits from joint cooperation.

To bring the topic of employing people with disabilities closer to employers and encourage them to take an active approach in their employment, the project ZaposliOsi has been launched. The project is implemented by SELECTIO d.o.o. in partnership with Lider, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, MojPosao.net, and the Institute for Labor Market Development, and is financed by the European Social Fund.

In this section, over the next few months, we will inform you about the topic of employing people with disabilities and various support tools that will be available to employers to assess the employment opportunities for this population and prepare for the quality inclusion of these individuals in their companies.