Agreement reached on employment of disabled in private sector

Companies will be able to outsource work to the disabled should they be unable to physically employ people with disability, according to a memorandum of understanding signed today. The memorandum was signed between the Malta Employers Association, the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry and the Employment and Training Corporation. It will be implementing a 1969 law which made it compulsory for employers to have at least two per cent of the workforce from among people with disability. The memorandum has resolved the difficulties employers had been facing to implement the law. In July last year, the law was amended to state that failure to attain the two per cent quota would trigger an automatic “contribution” to the ETC varying between €2,400 and €10,000. Another issue tackled in the memorandum is that, in the case of a group of companies, the different companies within the group would be able to share - not necessarily equally - the number of disabled people who had to be employed according to law. The memo also enabled the ETC to inform employers if one of their employees was disabled should the person concerned give consent. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the...