86% of companies not abiding by enforced disability quota

The vast majority of Maltese companies bound to a newly-enforced disability quota are not employing enough disabled people to meet it.

Employment and Training Corporation (ETC) statistics provided to MaltaToday reveal that 1,052 companies employ over 20 people and are therefore required to maintain a disabled employee quota of at least 2%.

However, eight months after the scheme was announced, only 144 (13.7%) of these companies are actually meeting this quota, with the remaining 908 (86.3%) falling short of the law.

The law that 2% of the workforce of companies employing over 20 people must be composed of disabled people has technically been in place since 1967. Yet its lax implementation by employers and the persistently high unemployment rate among disabled people prompted the government to announce in this year’s Budget that they will be enforcing it for the first time.

The law passed in Parliament on 15 July and companies now have until the end of September to meet their quotas or face a fine for every disabled person they should be employing. The fine will be set this year at €800 for every disabled person who should be employed by law, and will rise to €1,200 in 2016 and €2,400 in 2017. The fee will be capped at €10,000 per company, and the money generated through such fines will go to a national fund for the integration of disabled people.  

The ETC has sent a letter to all companies to notify them of their status and has offered to help those in breach through a public-private partnership, the Lino Spiteri Foundation, that has been set up to help match disabled people with jobs that match their skills. The foundation, named after the late finance minister and author, also aims to support disabled employees through job coaches. It is spearheaded by businessman Joseph Gasan as chairman and long-standing Inspire CEO Nathan Farrugia as executive director.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has argued that the mainstreaming of disabled people within society starts and finishes in schools, and has promised that investment in the disability sector will be one of the government’s main priorities for 2015.