Awareness raising and its limits

By Christian BlockLex KlerenMisch Pautsch Switch to German for original article

A little more than three years after its introduction, there are still no requests for inclusion assistance in the workplace. This could simply be because too few companies meet the legal employment quotas for workers with disabilities.

It is supposed to be an instrument for Luxembourg to comply with the country's obligations that come with the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD): In July 2019, Parliament voted unanimously to introduce inclusion assistance in the workplace (see infobox). The goal was to promote the employment of people who, because of physical or mental limitations due to a handicap or accident, face difficulties in finding a job.

However, the project, which was created by Family and Integration Minister Corinne Cahen (DP), has had teething problems. While there has been no shortage of interested assistants (the ministry had 15 registrations as of July 2021), applications for assistance have failed to materialise in recent years. The deputy director of the Employment Agency (Adem), Gaby Wagner, confirmed to the Journal that no request had officially been received by the beginning of March 2023.

"We are in many talks and various employers have expressed interest, " Wagner says, referring to a communication campaign with information material, networking and even a planned film. The lack of response to the inclusion assistance may come as a surprise, as there existed a similar offer years ago with job coaching. The offer of the non-profit organisation ATP was, among other things, aimed at the placement of people with mental disabilities, but accompanied them even after they had been successfully employed.

Gaby Wagner points out, however, that the two offers cannot be compared. The inclusion assistance introduced in 2020 "presupposes that the person already has an employment contract". Accordingly, the assistance is a job-preserving measure. "We often hear that things are going well in a company, but then there is a change in personnel and then suddenly the cooperation no longer works, " Wagner explains.

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