Employee’s professional competence, not disability becomes criterion for business – experts

It’s difficult but still possible to find a job, including well-paid, for a person with disability in Ukraine. Professional competence becomes key criterion for the business. Meanwhile, the state, instead of encouragement, is applying “the stick approach” to those businesses, which do not comply with the 4% quota of employment of persons with disabilities.

This was discussed during today’s discussion “How to find job for a person with disability in Ukraine?”, the Human Rights Information Centre correspondent reports.

According to the Social Policy Ministry, approximately 731,000 people with disabilities are employed in Ukraine, accounting for almost 30% of the total employed population. Moreover, 70% of the employed persons with disabilities do not require creating additional conditions and the existing barrier environment is not an obstacle to employment. However, the situation with barriers should be definitely changed. This was told by Roman Pylypenko, head of the department for rehabilitation services and employment of persons with disabilities at the Social Policy Ministry of Ukraine.

“The situation is gradually changing in Ukraine. First, there is a program of support for people with complicated form of disability at the workplace. It’s a sort of innovation for Ukraine. Second, it is important to develop a network of social enterprises that will provide the service or to produce products for other companies. The majority of employees of such companies is people with disabilities. Third, the mandatory quota of 4% for the companies must be changed from the “punitive” to “encouraging” one. Currently, the bill No.2322a on amendments to some legislative acts of Ukraine concerning the employment of persons with disabilities, which will eliminate the problem points in the employment of people with disabilities is pending consideration in the Parliament,” the official noted.

First and foremost, you need to see a specialist in a person with disability, rather than treat him or her as a helpless consumer, the experts say unanimously.

“Unfortunately, disability is seen as a problem in Ukraine until now. It’s already a thing of the past abroad as the employers are trying to create conditions for employment of people regardless of their characteristics,” spokesperson for the Coalition for Combating Discrimination Yulia Sachuk said.

During the discussion Sachuk noted that the State Employment Center often called to a company, asking “Do you need a disabled person?” forgetting to mention his education and skills.

Mykhailo Novosetsky, the expert of the National Assembly of Persons with Disabilities of Ukraine, is convinced that people with disabilities can compete in the labor market. The only question is the creation of appropriate working conditions. “We should inform that people with disabilities are active members of society as vigorously as we have started to raise the issue of gender policy. Another thing is that employment conditions are not always provided. And if a person with diabetes, a blind person, and a wheelchair user will run for one and the same office, an employer is likely to hire a person with diabetes. In this case, disability is not visible and an employer should not create special conditions,” Mykhailo Novosetsky explained.

Ruslana Berezovska, director of the HeadHunter (hh.ua) think tank, noted that the Ukrainian labor market had been affected by the crisis of 2014-2015, and it became much more difficult to find a job for all people. “Preparing for a meeting with journalists, I specifically examined whether the employers were interested in hiring people with disabilities. The interest is not high, but it definitely exists. However, it is important to note that the job offers for persons with disabilities are various, including well-paid,” the expert noted.

The ranking of the companies, which introduce the policy of discrimination and equality, has been formed in Ukraine during the year. “As of now, the representative offices of the international companies in Ukraine are leading. We hope that ‘purely Ukrainian enterprises’ will soon catch up,” Liza Kuzmenko, PR manager of the Ukrainian Corporate Equality Index project said.

A social video of the “Discrimination restricts. Resist!” campaign was presented within the framework of the discussion. The main character of the video is a person with disability, who wants to find a job. The campaign activists urge the employers not to be indifferent to people with disabilities and to create decent working environment.