Employment of Disabled Workers in the UK

(CNN, 2004) -- Any ethical company will tell you its policy is to employ people with disabilities, but actually incorporating them into the workforce is another matter. Many companies are concerned about the profitability and the productivity and also the health and safety aspects in the company, but it could prove otherwise to employ disabled workers. The UK Employers’ Forum on Disability, Remploy, Britain’s largest contractor of disabled people shares the same opinion as Sears and IMB by saying that they are loyal and rarely absent. In Europe there are legislations that prevent discrimination against the differently impaired people. France and Germany have implemented a quota system that entails the companies to fill 6% of their positions with disabled people or else they would be fined (Nick Easen for CNN, 2004).

The UK advocacy makes extra effort to point out that it is not expensive to accommodate disabled people. The Disability Rights Commission says that it only cost $250 per person. Studies by the federal Job Accommodation Network (JAN) have shown that 15% of accommodation cost nothing, 51% cost between $1 and $500, 12% cost between $501 and $1000 and 22% cost more than $1000 Sacha Cohen (2002). There are also UK government funds that help the companies with the cost of employing the disabled as well for the adjustments to the workplace for the disabled worker. The British companies that employ differently abled people are recognized in the Prime Minister’s Employer of the Year Awards.