ACT Inspection: Employment quotas for people with disabilities

On July 22, the Authority for Working Conditions ("ACT") announced that from September it will begin a nationwide inspection, which will last until the end of the first quarter of 2025, to verify compliance with employment quotas for persons with disabilities.  

Legal context of employment quotas

We recall that in 2019, Law 4/2019 of 10 January was published, which established a system of employment quotas for persons with disabilities with an incapacity level equal to or greater than 60%.

• Companies with 75 or more employees are required to have at least 1% of their workforce composed of persons with disabilities.

• Companies with 250 or more employees are required to have at least 2% of their workforce composed of persons with disabilities.

Fines and joint and several liability of managers, directors or officers

Failure to comply with the legally established quotas constitutes a serious labour  administrative offense punishable by a fine of up to EUR 9,690.00, depending on the company's turnover.

We emphasise that the managers, directors or officers are jointly and severally liable for this fine.

Social Responsibility

In addition to being a legal obligation, hiring employees with disabilities is a vital part of companies' social responsibility. In addition to the pursuit of profit, companies are increasingly required to actively contribute to the well-being of their workers and to the development of the communities to which they belong. Hiring employees with disabilities is undoubtedly one of the greatest exponents of this vision, which should be guided by the ultimate goal of truly granting decent opportunities to all.

Conclusion and opportunities

We encourage all companies with more than 75 employees not only to ensure legal compliance with their employment quota for persons with disabilities, but also to:

• stand out by adopting benchmark inclusive practices and thus be able to apply for the Inclusive Employer Mark award on the IEFP portal; and
• explore support options for employing persons with disabilities. There are various forms of support for employing people with disabilities, both for businesses and the employees themselves, which essentially seek to eliminate or at least reduce some of the difficulties often encountered with recruiting and integrating these employees into the labor market. By way of example, we highlight (i) the internships scheme, (ii) the job-placement contracts scheme, (iii) the open-market job-support scheme, (iv) the reduction of the rate for social security contributions, and (v) the support for adapting workstations.