Hungary was one of the worst performing countries in the EU in terms of employment of people with reduced working capacity in 2010, but the 18 percent employment rate has now risen to almost 50 percent, the State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior responsible for care policy told MTI in Brussels on Monday.
Attila Fülöp attended a conference on reasonable accommodation for the social inclusion of people with disabilities at the European Parliament in the Belgian capital, where he also had discussions with representatives of civil society organisations.
The Hungarian State Secretary stressed that the Hungarian state is committed to supporting people with disabilities by providing accessibility and extending employment as widely as possible.
He stressed that the employment of people with disabilities and long-term illnesses is a social, solidarity and economic issue as well. In Hungary today, 150,000 people with a reduced work capacity have a job and support themselves and their families not from benefits but from earnings, he added. He also said it was positive that around three quarters of the people in employment were working in the open labour market.
Today, 4.7 million people are working in Hungary, an increase of 30 percent since 2010, or about one million, but the increase in the number of people with a reduced work capacity was 150 percent, so the most disadvantaged people were the ones who were able to participate in employment, he said.
In a press release sent to MTI, Fidesz MEP Ádám Kósa, who hosted the conference, stressed that "the future lies in personalised solutions and assistive technologies that can help overcome the disabilities that arise from ageing."
László Lovászy, UN human rights expert, Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Public Service and Senior Advisor to the Minister of Social Affairs, pointed out that "the incredible development of biotechnology and the rapid spread of artificial intelligence may bring opportunities, challenges and risks for people with disabilities in the world of work that we could not have imagined before, and may require a complete review of the European position in the future."
Representatives of the European Commission, the European Disability Forum (EDF), the European Independent Living Association (ENIL), and the European Association of Disability Service Providers (EASPD) agreed that the working conditions of people with disabilities in the EU are changing only slowly. They pointed out that reasonable accommodation involves not only material but also organisational measures, such as changing the speed or rhythm of work.
Source: MTI-Hungarian News Agency
