Rate of employment of people with disabilities in Fukushima at its highest despite nearly 30% of companies not employing any disabled

From NHK

January 25 2023

FUKUSHIMA – The rate of employment of people with disabilities, whereby companies are obliged to increase the employment of people with disabilities, reached the highest level in the prefecture last year, but nearly 30% of companies do not employ even one person, NHK found out in a summary by the Fukushima labor bureau.

The Fukushima Labor Bureau surveyed 1,520 private companies in the prefecture that have a certain number of employees or more and are obliged to employ people with disabilities, and announced the results last month.

According to the summary, as of June 1, last year, the employment rate of target companies in the prefecture was 2.19% as a whole, an increase of 0.04 points from the previous year, the highest ever. It was 0.06 points below the average of 2.25%.

Only 825 companies, or 54.3% of the target companies, achieved the legal employment rate of 2.3%, which is required by law for private companies.

In addition, among the target companies, 440 companies do not employ people with disabilities, which is nearly 30% of the total, and many of them are small companies with less than 100 employees.

On the other hand, public institutions such as prefectures and municipalities have a legal employment rate of 2.6%, and as of the 1st of last month, 30, or about 40%, of the prefecture’s 79 institutions have not achieved it.

The Fukushima Labor Bureau said, “We would like to continue to cooperate with Hello Work and provide guidance to achieve the legally mandated employment rate.”