Twenty companies are sanctioned for not hiring people with disabilities

The Canary Islands Employment Service, in coordination with the Department of Labour Inspection, has issued 20 sanctions, for a total of 39,500 euros, to companies with more than 50 workers for failing to comply with the legal obligation that at least 2% of their employees are people with registered disabilities.

The Minister of Employment for the Canary Islands, Elena Máñez, gave this information yesterday, during an appearance at the Disability Commission of the Canary Islands Parliament in which she pointed out that so far in 2022, over 560 specific work inspections have been carried out for this legal requirement, which is an increase over 2021 when there were 417 all year.

When public or private companies with more than 50 workers do not employ at least 2% of their workforce to people with disabilities, they have several compensatory alternatives to avoid being sanctioned, and it is up to the Canarian Employment Service to assess whether the business proposals compensate for not hiring them.

These alternative measures can range from the signing of a civil or commercial contract with a special employment centre or with self-employed disabled people, to making donations or sponsorships of labour insertion and job creation activities with people with disabilities.

In the case of the Canary Islands, the Canarian Employment Service approved 62 alternative measures in the period from 2020 to 2022, including 41 alternative service provision contracts for 4.2 million euros, six supply contracts for 200,000 euros, and 15 donations totalling 300,000 euros.

Elena Máñez said at the Disability Commission, that disability, like equality, is one of the transversal policies of the Canary Islands Government. Regarding employment, she explained that in the Archipelago there are 89,900 people with disabilities of working age, which is 5.78% of the total workforce, compared to the national average of 6.17%.

On the other hand, the rate of inactivity among people with disabilities is higher in the Canary Islands, 72.9% compared to 65.6% for the country as a whole. However, the evolution of the labour market for people with disabilities in the Canaries has followed the same positive trend since 2020 as the general population, in line with the economic recovery after the pandemic.