CC BY
48SOCIAL SCIENCES
EMPLOYMENT OF DISABLED PERSONS IN KAZAKHSTAN: OPPORTUNITIES OF SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Aukenov Ye.
DBA Student, Almaty Management University Almaty, Kazakhstan https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6594775
Abstract
The advantages of employment for disabled people are undoubted: not only it provides financial sustainability and helps disabled people integrate in the community but also has economic benefits for the society as a whole. However, today disabled people around the world face different challenges when it comes to the questions of employment. In Kazakhstan, there are multiple state support measures aimed at the employment of disabled persons. Nevertheless, only 25% of disabled people of working age are employed. This article examines the labor market statistics and existent employment opportunities for disabled people in Kazakhstan. It also outlines the opportunities that social entrepreneurship provides in solving this problem.
Keywords: disability, employment, social entrepreneurship, labor market, state support of employment, employment of disabled people.
According to the International Labour Organization 15% of world's population - almost a billion people - have some forms of disability. About 80% of these people are of working age. As early as in 1944, the International Labour Organization has acknowledged that people with disabilities must have equal rights and access to job opportunities [1, p. 4]. However, today, almost 80 years later, disabled people around the world still face employment challenges.
Ensuring effective employment of the population and the rational use of labor resources is an important factor for the sustainable economic growth of the country, consistent increase in the standard of living and
welfare of the population. Therefore, governments try to involve in the economic activity as much labor resources and human capital as possible.
In 2020, the labor force in Kazakhstan reached 9.2 million people (69.2% of population aged 15 and older; 48.7% of total population). More than 8.7 million people were employed in the economy of the republic. The employment rate reached 95.1% to the labor force, and 65.9% to the population aged 15 years and older. The number of unemployed people in 2020 amounted to 448.8 thousand people with the unemployment rate of 4.9% [2].
6,4 6,2
■ I I I I I I I I I
16-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 64 and
older
Figure 1. Unemployment rates (share in the labor force) by age groups, % Source: Bureau of National Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan [2, p. 52]
Every third unemployed person was unemployed due to the lack of available jobs, 21.2% were dismissed by their own free will, 14% were dismissed due to family circumstances. More than 30% of unemployed people claimed that they have never worked, while 6% were unemployed for less than a month (Figure 2).
27,1 (6.3%)
(20.4%)
(10.4%)
less than a month 1-3 months 3-6 months 6-12 months more than a year never worked
Figure 2. Unemployed people by the length of unemployment period, thousand people (%) Source: Bureau of National Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan [2, p. 59]
In 2020, more than 4 million people were not included in the labor force. Main reasons for the exclusion from the labor force were reaching the retirement age and studying on full-time basis: almost 50% of are elderly aged 60 and older, and 30% are youth aged 15-24.
Other reasons
Health issues
154,1
Retirement
Housekeepin
g
Full-time studies
33,6
2
1301,6
I Men ■ Women
Figure 3. Unemployed people by the reasons of exclusion from the labor force,
thousand people
Source: Bureau of National Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan [2, pp. 82-83]
250,8
682,6
570,3
It is worth mentioning that 283.6 thousand people were excluded from the labor force due to health issues. Among them, almost 157 thousand (55%) are men and women aged 45-64 years who did not reach the retirement age [2, pp. 82-83].
According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, 7.5% of country's population or 697 thousand people have been certified as being disabled. The share of working-age people in the total number of disabled persons is 60% or 419 thousand people [3]. Nonetheless, only a quarter of these people (104 thousand) are employed. For comparison, the United Nations report that "in developing countries, 80% to 90% of persons with disabilities of working age are unemployed, whereas in industrialized countries the figure is between 50% and 70%" [4]. During the study conducted by UNICEF for the Ministry of National Economy's Statistics Committee, 32% of participating persons with disabilities highlighted barriers to employment as one the most important problems that worsen the quality of life for disabled people in Kazakhstan [5].
Therefore, the issue of encouraging employment of persons with disabilities and ensuring their social integration is one of the main priorities of the government agenda. As part of these efforts, on December 11, 2008, the Republic of Kazakhstan signed the UN Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was ratified by the relevant Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on February 20, 2015. This law is aimed at providing persons with disabilities with equal opportunities to exercise civil, political, social, economic, cultural and other rights and freedoms preserved in the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as international treaties to which Kazakhstan is a party.
In 2005, the country has adopted the Law on social protection of persons with disabilities (Law) that provides definitions of "disability" and "persons with disabilities", sets out the government policies and principles of social protection, and elaborates the rights and state support measures for disabled people [6].
Namely, Article 14 of the Law states that persons with disabilities have rights and freedoms to get professional training and retraining, vocational rehabilitation and employment. Moreover, Article 31 of the Law places obligation on the local state authorities to ensure the employment of persons with disabilities via:
1) setting quotas on employers to hire 2-4% of employees from among the disabled people;
2) creating additional jobs for persons with disabilities through the development of sole proprietorship, small and medium entrepreneurship;
3) creating special and social work positions for persons with disabilities;
4) vocational training of disabled people.
Another measure adopted in Kazakhstan in order
to encourage the employment of persons with disabilities is the priority of associations of disabled people in the government procurement of certain goods, works and services. In accordance with the Article 51 of the Law "On Public Procurement" public organizations must ensure that at least 50% of goods and 100% of works and services specified in the corresponding government decree are bought from the associations of persons with disabilities [7]. The government decree includes 15 groups of goods (such as furniture, stationery, uniforms, etc.), 7 types of services (cleaning, landscaping, printing services, etc.) and 1 type of work (landscaping) [8]. Additionally, special taxi services for persons with disabilities are procured from the associations of disabled people by signing direct contracts without tender procedures [7].
Despite the availability of legal framework and multiple measures adopted by the government, statistics of employment among the disabled people suggest that these measures are inadequate and do not encourage employers to hire disabled people. A deeper analysis of the legal acts has educed several explanations for this trend.
Firstly, quotas on employers are set annually regardless of the type, legal form and ownership of the organizations. The only exceptions are the associations of persons with disabilities, organizations where more than 20% of employees are disabled, and organizations that have special rules for hiring employees according to the laws of Kazakhstan (mainly state bodies and law enforcement authorities). For organizations with 50 -100 employees, quota is set at a rate of 2%; 101 - 250 employees - 3%; 251 and more employees - 4% [9].
At the same time the rules do not clarify sanctions or penalties for the employers who do not fulfill this obligation. Moreover, the rules do not impose any responsibilities or penalties on the local authorities who
In Kazakhstan, social entrepreneurship is just starting to develop. In 2021, amendments to Kazakhstan's Entrepreneurial Code were made in order to incorporate the concept and objectives of social entrepre-neurship. Thus, social enterprises are defined as sole proprietors and legal entities (excluding large business enterprises) which are included in the Register of Social Entrepreneurship (Register) and correspond to one of the four categories detailed in the Entrepreneurial
fail to control the implementation of the quota scheme. As a result, 64% of the employers have failed to meet the required level of quota in 2020 [10] and only 5.8 thousand people with disabilities obtained employment using this instrument [3].
Secondly, most of the adopted measures are authoritative and do not include any financial or social incentives for the employers. Considering that in Kazakhstan people with disabilities are still perceived as unproductive, burdensome and incapable of performing equally with other employees [10], this stems a great degree of reluctance from the employers.
Thirdly, the Law "On Public Procurement" provides privileges only for the associations of persons with disabilities. Initially, this norm was included in the legislation to support the employment of disabled people. However, today the associations employ not more than 3 thousand persons with disabilities which is less than 1% of working-age disabled people. Total number of employees in half of these organizations is less than 5 people [3]. Meanwhile organizations that employ greater numbers of disabled people but are not registered in the form of association do not have any privileges.
One of the effective ways to tackle the problem of unemployment among the persons with disabilities, as well as other underprivileged groups of population, can be the development of social entrepreneurship. As Fon-teneau et al. state: "in the context of mainstream labour policies' inability to ensure a balanced allocation of the available labour force, social enterprises have emerged as innovative institutional solutions for supported employment favouring those workers who are discriminated against by conventional enterprises" [11, p. 90].
The study conducted by the European Commission [12] has demonstrated that in countries with the developed social entrepreneurship sector these organizations can employ hundreds of thousands of people, including persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups of population. Some country examples are provided in Table 1.
Table 1
Code. The first category of social entrepreneurs consists of organizations that contribute to the employment of vulnerable groups of population, including persons with disabilities. These organizations must satisfy two criteria: 1) at least 50% of employees must be from vulnerable groups of population; 2) at least 25% of labor costs should be used to pay salaries for vulnerable groups of population. As of May, 2022 the Register includes 25 social entrepreneurs, of which more than half (13) belong to the first category [13].
Estimated number of social enterprises' employees in European ^ countries
Country Estimated number of so- Number of social enterprises Estimated number of
cial enterprises per million inhabitants employees
France 96,603 1,414 1,187,249
Italy 102,461 1,694 894,800
Belgium 18,004 1,530 572,914
Poland 29,535 768 428,700
United Kingdom 30,753 464 353,357
Portugal 7,938 771 145,734
Source: The European Commission [12, pp. 106-107]
The Entrepreneurial Code also outlines nine measures of state support that the social entrepreneurs are entitled to, such as ensuring the availability of infrastructure to support social entrepreneurship; tax benefits (reduction of taxable income by the amount of expenses spent on training employees from the vulnerable groups of population and reduction of property tax); financial support (including subsidies on the interest rates of bank loans and for paying property rent); leasing state property on preferential terms; information support; consulting and methodological support, development through acceleration programs; assistance in the development of interregional cooperation and in the search for business partners; organization of vocational training and additional education; state grants for the implementation of significant social projects
However, to jump-start the rapid development of social entrepreneurship and encourage the employment of persons with disabilities, additional measures of state support should be included. For instance, instead of providing privileges to the associations of persons with disabilities in public procurement procedures priority should be given to the first category of social entrepreneurs. Namely, additional points can be assigned to social entrepreneurs in the evaluation of their bids or certain share of contracts can be reserved for this category of enterprises. Similar strategies are practiced by many developed countries. For example, Article 20 of the European Directive on public procurement states that "Member States may reserve the right to participate in public procurement procedures to sheltered workshops and economic operators whose main aim is the social and professional integration of disabled or disadvan-taged persons or may provide for such contracts to be performed in the context of sheltered employment programmes, provided that at least 30 % of the employees of those workshops, economic operators or programmes are disabled or disadvantaged workers" [14].
Furthermore, special financial incentives should be put in place for social entrepreneurs hiring disabled or disadvantaged groups of population such as wage subsidies for the workers with disabilities, tax exemptions, reduction of social security contributions state grants, issuing guarantee letters for the social entrepreneurs who do not have collateral to get bank loans, etc. [15].
Encouraging and promoting social entrepreneur-ship and corporate social responsibility, rather than pressuring and forcing employers, can have much better results in solving the problem of unemployment among the disabled and disadvantaged groups of population.
REFERENCES:
1. International Labour Organization (2015). Decent work for persons with disabilities: promoting rights in the global development agenda. ISBN: 97892-2-129358-3. URL: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---ifp_skills/documents/publica-tion/wcms_430935.pdf
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