By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
The number of disabled people is growing at more than 11 percent annually but the government's budget and the level of employment offered to them are lagging far behind this growth rate, government data showed Monday, a day ahead of the 30th Day for the Disabled.
In Korea, a total of 2.4 million people are registered as disabled as of the end of 2009, rising an average of 11.2 percent a year, since 2000. In other words, one person in 20 has some form of disability, but it is rare to find them in the workplace.
The survey conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs in 2008 showed that the ratio of employed among the disabled in Korea stood at 37.7 percent, much lower than the 58.4 percent employment rate.
The figure is somewhat exaggerated as it includes unpaid laborers, experts said. Among those categorized as employed among the disabled, most help the family business for free, work in farming or fishing or work as simple daily laborers.
"There are those with disabilities who are hired without payment, but they are included among the employed," a spokesman for the Disabled Peoples International Korea said. "There are also many who are counted as economically inactive because they do not seek job opportunities due to practical restrictions."
The labor ministry has obliged businesses to allocate a certain percentage of jobs to people with disabilities.
Disabled employees should account for at least 2 percent of the staff for companies with more than 50 workers and 3 percent for central and local government.
Despite the measure to boost the employment of the disabled, the hiring rate for private firms and the government was only 1.7 percent as of 2008.
The government's support for the handicapped is still insufficient as well.
According to the Ministry of Labor and the Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled (KEAD), Korea has the lowest budget for the disabled among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
As of 2005, the budget for the people with disabilities was 0.1 percent compared to the total gross domestic product (GDP) in Korea, the second lowest among 23 OECD countries following Mexico with 0 percent. The OECD average was 1.2 percent.
"The employment rate of the disabled in Korea is a bit higher than the OECD average, but overall welfare for them is still poor compared to other developed countries," a labor ministry official said. |
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