The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has decided to gradually raise the mandatory employment rate for persons with disabilities from the current 2.3% to 2.7% in three years.
The Act on Employment Promotion of Persons with Disabilities obligates companies to maintain a certain percentage of employees with disabilities, which is currently 2.3%.
Regarding this, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare decided at a council held on the 18th to increase the rate to 2.7% in three years in order to secure more places for people with disabilities to work.
The rate will be raised in two stages, one in April next year and the other in July three years later, by 0.2% each.
In addition, the employment rate of the national and local governments will rise from the current 2.6% to 3% in three years, and the board of education will raise the current 2.5% to 2.9% in three years.
At the council, while groups of persons with disabilities called for stronger measures in line with the increase in the employment rate, companies said that it would be difficult to improve the quality of employment if only the achievement of numbers was prioritized, so they decided to set or raise the rate. Concerns about timing were also raised.
Based on these opinions, the plan presented by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare at the beginning of the meeting was to raise the rate to 2.7% three years later in April, but it was pushed back three months to July.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, as of June last year, the number of people with disabilities working at companies was over 610,000 and continues to increase, but only 48% of companies have achieved the employment rate. We will also promote measures such as expanding subsidies for