More needs to be done to find jobs for the disabled
By Julia Ng, Channel NewsAsia
SINGAPORE: Less than half of disabled people in Singapore have jobs.
While welfare organisations are looking into finding new jobs for the disabled, some are calling for more government support in the form of tax incentives for companies and training programmes for the disabled.
At the SIA-MINDS Employment Centre, the physically disabled are given training so that in three months they can earn some income packing SIA headsets.
But the pay is low, about $50 to $250 a month.
The Centre is one of three centres run by MINDS - the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore.
It employs 650 people.
BizLink, another centre, found jobs for 242 disabled people in the whole of last year and employs 100 in-house.
They say finding jobs for the disabled is a constant struggle.
One solution - MINDS has tried to create businesses for their trainees like
the Maria at Thrift Shop, a food catering business with food prepared by the intellectually-disabled.
The Maria at Thrift Shop also runs a few shops where people with Down Syndrome are taught skills in cashier work and customer service.
Over at BizLink, workers learn to sort and scan used airline tickets.
As higher-skilled workers move upstream, more lower-skilled positions are freed up so the centre can take in others for training and placement.
Some in the volunteer sector want legislation and point to other countries where there is a minimum quota for disabled employees.
Aaron Ng, MINDS' executive director, said: "A lot of countries have a Disability Act, a legislation which helps to secure the social status, providing employment for the disabled. For instance in Japan, any company with employment of more than a hundred, is supposed to employ about 1% of the disabled persons in their midst. They even have a scheme. If the companies refuse to hire, they pay a fine. And, Taiwanese as well as Japanese government have got a very innovative scheme whereby they pool the fines together to set up a fund to fund VWOs who want to set up social enterprises to self create employment for the disabled."
In Singapore, it has been argued that such a law would be a double-edged sword which ends up discriminating the disabled rather than protecting them.
Others say that having rebates, subsidies and tax incentives for companies which hire such staff could be a better way to go.
Justin Tan, general manager, BizLink Centre Singapore, said: "Ultimately, the Government needs to see employment for people with disabilities as a labour issue, as an employment issue, rather than a welfare issue. Maybe even some tax incentives for every disabled person, low-skilled disabled person employed. Government can give some kind of tax rebate or relief or something like that."
The National Council of Social Service says it does not track how many disabled people are employed nationwide.
But what's clear is that out of 160,000 disabled, only a very small portion are employed. - CNA
my previous company employs ppl who are from special schools... they can function like all of us, only flaw is that they are slower in actions, not as efficient. But most of the time, they get bullied by "normal" ppl... kenna yelled, bossed around.. quite sad lor.
my current company employs handicaps too. One of my kitchen crew is deaf and mute... but we get along very well through sign language. It's the mindset of locals lar... they feel that we "normal" ppl work so hard take same pay as the sub- normal ppl (my company pay flat rate to them, nothing more, nothing less), then they KPKB... complain they are slow, stupid... sometimes i would rather not employ them as i don't want them to be abused like this. Managers are not always there to prevent such incidents, and some managers they themseleves bully the sub normal ppl.... ver sad!