Employment is crucial for people's social integration, physical and mental health, well-being and self realization…whatsoever your abilities and disabilities are.
This website hopes to contribute to full employment of people with disabilities and will tackle barriers and gaps, facilitate stakeholder cooperation, develop innovative approaches and support Human Rights based initiatives.
EASPD represents close to 8000 service provider organizations across disability and across Europe. A considerable part of the EASPD membership provides job-related services or employment to people with disabilities. Employment and job opportunities, therefore, are high on the agenda of the service providers in Europe.
EASPD is glad to see that the EC wants to facilitate and support a coherent and pro-active employment policy for people with disabilities through, among other actions, inviting Member States to pay sufficient attention to this particular target group in their National Action Plans and strategies.
In order to follow the trends in the field, EASPD has a Standing Committee on Employment. This committee is a permanent working group within the organisation following up relevant policies and being actively involved in projects like LABOr, Fair on Jobs, Jobwards, Hop Skip Jump, Conversion.
It consists of Service Providers, experts in the field of employment and authorities.
EASPD-positions
- Sustainable employment is only possible if the Member States, supported and steered by the EU, develop a career-centred thinking. Employment is not only about finding a job.
- Sustainable employment is only possible when Life Long Learning is organised and implemented in such a way that people with disabilities can benefit from it: LLL leads to flexibility. We think the development of the new LLL-strategy is a very important step forward, which must be followed up and included in the relevant Action Plans of Member States.
- Sustainable employment of people with disabilities should be facilitated by incentives for employers who hire disabled people. The costs linked to possible production loss, training, support, job creation or job carving must be borne by the authorities.
- Relevant and fulfilling jobs for people with disabilities are not only to be found on the open labour market. Although employment on the open labour market is certainly to be preferred, still today more than 1 million people are working in sheltered conditions. Sheltered work continues to exist as a stepping stone and a training place or even a realistic alternative working environment, as long as it is not segregating and it is people's personal choice.
- We therefore request a coherent approach of the EC initiatives on state aid, training aid and employment enhancing measures as well as on the new to launch PROGRESS-program.
- Employment on the open labour market doesn't involve only the profit sector. Support, coaching, job carving, etc… are all organised by supported employment agencies. These services need more financial means for their work and they need to be able to exchange models of good practice in order to fulfil their role as bridge between labour demand and supply.
- Quota systems for hiring people with disabilities exist in a variety of ways in the Member States. A comparative research on these systems would provide guidance for the future.
- In some countries the benefit trap maintains people with disabilities in unemployment and social exclusion. A targeted project to map this benefit trap and to suggest ways to tackle the issue is necessary. The EU is the most appropriate actor to facilitate and finance this study. It should be implemented by integrating actions combating the benefit trap in the National Action Plans (NAP).
- Structural relations between stakeholders at all governmental levels (local, regional, national, European) are necessary. EASPD suggests that the EC establishes and finances a stakeholder-network that focuses on the employment of people with disabilities. Members of this network would be, in addition to EASPD, the European Disability Forum, the Business and Disability Network, the EC Unit for integration of people with disabilities, the social partners ETUC and BUSINESSEUROPE (formely UNICE), the appropriate body of the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee.
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