About 15 percent of people with disabilities are employed each year. This is evidenced by a survey conducted by Acerta among 40 thousand private companies – excluding dedicated companies. This number remains (very) small, but progress is progress. “Small businesses in particular are hiring more people with disabilities.”
The human resources services company Acerta puts a thermometer in the bathroom every year and sees positive development, although it is still small. In 2023, 0.27% of people in the regular labor market were people with a physical or mental disability. That's 1 in 369 employees. In the previous year this was still 0.24% or 1 in 424 employees. That is, an increase of 14.8%. “Companies can no longer afford to leave talent undeveloped,” says Acerta. The war for talentIn addition to the goal of achieving an 80 percent hiring rate, it is already making a greater effort to increase diversity.
Religious difference
Brussels companies in particular have made significant progress from 0.35% to 0.51% of employees with disabilities, an advance of 45.96% in one year. The Walloon region drops slightly to 0.38% (-3.6%). But companies in Brussels and Walloon perform much better than Flemish companies, where the number is increasing (+8.65%), but where the number of people with disabilities does not exceed 0.20% of employees, that is, half or even less than their counterparts in Wallonia and Brussels.
Flanders lags behind: Brussels and Walloon companies employ far more people with disabilities
The chemicals, pharmaceuticals and energy sectors employ the largest number of people with disabilities: in 2023, this proportion will be 0.68% and the increase will be very strong (+781%). The performance of the catering sector (0.31%) is better than the national average. In the services and financial sectors (0.28%), employment rates are stagnating. Metal and manufacturing industries are improving (0.27%), however Social profit (0.22%), construction (0.90%), logistics and transportation (12.73%) and wholesale and retail trade (0.18%) are still well below average.
Small businesses
Small businesses employ proportionally more people with disabilities than larger businesses. The highest number in 2023 is in the category with 50 to 100 employees (0.60%, +79.88%). But even the larger ones, the ratio is significantly lower than the smaller ones.
According to the Supreme National Council for Persons with Disabilities, only about a quarter of people with disabilities still have a job.
According to William Boeva, further inclusion in the workplace is still very slow: “I was told they would replace me with a woman, for ‘more diversity’.”
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