A person’s needs could consist of having a ramp to access a building, or a traffic light with sound for those with vision problems, or having spaces for a wheelchair or reserved seats on public transport. Let’s imagine for a moment that all books were in Braille, that all orders in a cafeteria were made in sign language or that all streets had only ramps and not stairs. Difficult, right? 

This is already complicated in everyday life, but it is even more so in the workplace, where more than 70% of jobs in Peru are informal, with no guarantees or protection for workers. Given this reality, for some years now, the government has issued regulations to promote equal opportunities for workers with disabilities. Thus, the General Law for Persons with Disabilities establishes the obligation for all employers in the private sector with more than 50 workers to hire, as a minimum, a quota of 3% of people with disabilities; the quota is 5% for a public entity. 

Although the provision is a positive step, it has not been implemented well. The State has primarily limited its role to verifying whether or not these quotas are met and sanctioning non-compliance. This is clearly insufficient, since any labour inclusion strategy should be comprehensive, and generate a real promotion of the employability of this group, taking into account factors such as the type of positions, the areas of employability and the appropriate conditions to guarantee safety at work. 

In this regard, Peru’s Administration of Labour Supervision (‘Sunafil’) annually conducts inspections of employers to verify whether they comply with this obligation. However, even the largest, most formal employers that have established labour inclusion programs routinely do not meet the quotas and are fined, which further discourages hiring. This is because the Administration only verifies whether they meet the quota, without considering whether there are special circumstances or reasons that make hiring difficult in a certain sector, whether due to geographic, educational or qualification aspects.  

Further, although the law allows exemptions from this obligation for employers in some cases (i.e., allowing them to not be fined for failing to prove the hiring of 3% or 5%), the truth is that in practice it is not possible to comply with the conditions for such exemptions, since the State itself has not provided the tools to do so. For example, employers must prove that they requested the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion (MTPE) to hire people with disabilities, but the MTPE does not have a virtual platform that allows this procedure to be done quickly and efficiently. 

Employers should aim to create a culture of effective inclusion. This labour inclusion strategy should be comprehensive and generate a real effort to achieve employment and promotion of this group of workers, taking into account factors such as the type of positions available, the areas of employability, and the appropriate conditions to guarantee safety at work.