On April 27th, EUD attended the launch of the European Disability Forum’s (EDF) new report “The Right to Work: the employment situation of persons with disabilities in Europe”. The authors of the report – Jane Buchanan and Haydn Hammersley – provided an overview of the report and its most important findings.
The report highlighted the main difference between the access to employment of persons with and without disabilities: specifically, it showed that the EU average percentage of employed persons without disabilities is around 76%, while that of employed persons with disabilities was of 24%. Moreover, it highlights that the employment situation is considerably different according to each Member State. Indeed, while the average disability employment gap is around 27% in the EU, Member States such as Ireland and Belgium have a higher disability employment gap while others, such as Italy and Denmark, have a lower employment gap. The report showed that specific intersectional categories such as women with disabilities, young people with disabilities, as well as persons with high support needs have higher difficulties when seeking employment. During the presentation of the report, it was also added that even when persons with disabilities are employed, they do not enjoy the same quality of work, conditions, and they are paid less than persons without disabilities.
During this event, Director of Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL), Ms Katarina Ivankovic-Knezevic, presented relevant initiatives of the EU Disability Employment Package, as well as the upcoming guidelines on reasonable accommodation which will cover all steps of the recruitment process. This initiative complements the “Practitioner toolkit on strengthening PES (Public Employment Services) to improve the labour market outcomes of persons with disabilities” which was published by the European Commission in September 2022. Ms Ivankovic-Knezevic also highlighted the human rights approach that the European Commission is using to implement the initiatives within the EU Disability Employment Package.
The launch of EDF’s Report was followed by a time of discussion where several speakers – Ms Tamara Byrne, Ms Pirkko Mahlakami, and Mr Kamil Goungor – highlighted the most urgent problems to tackle regarding the discrimination of people with disabilities when accessing the labour market. These include equal salary, implementation of reasonable accommodation, and equal treatment.
EUD welcomes the launch of EDF’s report and appreciates the important contribution to the collection of data in the context of employment of people with disabilities. As it was highlighted during the event by both EDF and several participants, EUD embraces the call for a more detailed collection of disaggregated data, with a specific focus on the conditions of employment and associated barriers for deaf people.
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