The revelation last week that most national government organizations have employed far fewer people with disabilities than claimed calls into question whether the system to promote hiring of those people is effective. Based on a 1960 law, the goal is to make sure that all people, irrespective of whether they have physical, intellectual or mental disabilities, should be able to work according to their wishes and capabilities.
Along with efforts to identify how the government organs — which are supposed to set examples for private sector companies in hiring more people with disabilities — fell short of their legally mandated quotas, it should be scrutinized whether the current system is serving the law's purpose of ending discrimination against those people by expanding job opportunities for them.
National government organizations, including ministries and agencies, had claimed that as of last year they employed some 6,900 people with disabilities, accounting for an average of 2.49 percent of their staff. But in fact, according to a government probe, they had padded the figures by including in their head counts 3,460 people with relatively minor disabilities who do not qualify for the program to promote employment of those with disabilities. People officially certified as having disabilities accounted for a mere 1.19 percent of the organizations' workforces — well below the mandatory 2.3 percent at that time.