UNIT 20 Disability

More opportunities for disabled workers

SHENZHEN: Employment regulations for disabled workers will be amended in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.

The move is aimed at further protecting equal employment opportunities for disabled people, sources from the city's disability association said.

The revised regulation is designed to be a government decree or can be made into a law by the local legislation departments. The provisional regulation, published in March 1998, stipulated that disabled workers should make up at least 0.5 per cent of the staff of all governmental departments, institutes and companies.

In the revised regulation, foreign-funded companies are also to be encouraged to employ disabled people, according to the disability association.

Incomplete statistics showed that 723 disabled people had been employed by a number of companies by the end of 1999.

The association decided to fulfil the target set for the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000) of improving the employment rate of disabled people with working capability to 80 per cent this year.

Legislation for the disabled will ensure that more companies implement the regulation, said Wang Midong, an official with the association.

江苏省靖江高级中学