The employers, when they refuse to hire a person with disabilities, usually invoke unjustified arguments. The employment announcements are frequently generalist and do not contain too many details about the vacancy. When the person comes to an interview, this learns there are additional professional obligations that sometimes can be invented as a pretext for refusing a potential employee with disabilities. For example, some of the employers invoke mobility, possession of a driver’s license or other tasks that are not indicated in the announcement, said experts of the Center for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
In a news conference at IPN, the Center’s executive director Vitalie Meșter said there was a case when a young woman with visual impairments went to get a job at a company. The young woman asked to be helped by someone from the company’s administration to fill out the standard form or to be allowed to complete it electronically with the assistance of a computer program. The employer refused both of the opportunities and the young woman was not employed. As a result, she went to the Council for the Prevention and Elimination of Discrimination and Ensuring of Equality, which ascertained a case of discrimination. There is also a court decision by which the given company was obliged to pay the young woman a sum of money in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
Vitalie Meșter said the law on the social inclusion of persons with disabilities clearly says that the employers, regardless of the legal organizational form, with 20 and more employees create or reserve jobs and employ persons with disabilities who represent at least 5% of all the employees.
The Center for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities conducted a study that covered 24 institutions of the central public authorities, including ministries, agencies and institutions that are directly managed by the Government, such as the National House of Social Insurance, the National Health Insurance Company and the National Bureau of Statistics. This shows the employment quota among persons with disabilities at these institutions is of 2.48%, with a total of 7,846 jobs being examined overall. Of these, 12.48% were vacancies.
Ion Cibotărică, public policy and advocacy programs director at the Center, said there are public institutions that employ no person with disabilities. Only the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection and the National House of Social Insurance respect the mandatory quota, having hired persons with disabilities who represent 6.25% and, respectively, 5.8% of the employees. The Public Property Agency, the Ministry of Finance, the National Bureau of Statistics and the National Health Insurance Company are close to ensuring the mandatory quota.
According to Ion Cibotărică, the persons with disabilities have small chances of finding a job and the public authorities were warned not only once to take measures to ensure this right. The employers often invoke the fact that the persons with disabilities do not have higher education and ensuring these persons’ access to higher education is thus a condition so that they could cope with the current employment requirements.
