Hungarian System of Vocational
Rehabilitation
and Supported Employment – in a Nutshell (2001)
The
system described below is still in effect, however, it is subject to a basic reform
after
1 Legislative background, disability
policy, institutional context
The
Hungarian Constitution ensures equality, right to work and social security for
each citizen as fundamental human rights principles. During the past fifteen years several legal instruments have been
adopted that guarantee the rights and equal opportunities of people with
disabilities with special reference to partly compensating for the unfavorable
effects on the labor market of the transition from a centrally planned to a
market economy. Until about one and a half decades ago vocational
rehabilitation had hardly any institutional traditions because during the
period of full employment – when demand for labor exceeded supply and wages
were centrally controlled – the problems people with disabilities encountered
in employment remained hidden.
The
first attempt to encourage enterprises to take on workers with disabilities
appeared in the legislation of 1967 when a general labor market shortage characterized
the economy. The law imposed different obligations on industrial enterprises
but the level of state subsidy was not high enough to encourage them to opt for
a new employment policy with regard to workers with disabilities. The control
over fulfillment of obligations was not effective enough resulting in the alteration
of system in 1983.
The
decree issued jointly by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance that
year on the employment and social benefits of persons with reduced working
abilities brought thorough modification in the earlier provisions concerning
the employment of individuals with disabilities under the jurisdiction of the
decree. Although it has been amended since then several times, it is still the
basis of legislation on people with disabilities. The decree addresses the following
issues: the duties of employers and rehabilitation committees related to the
vocational rehabilitation of persons with reduced working abilities, income
supplement and other benefits granted for the persons concerned. The decree
defines the objective of the vocational rehabilitation of persons with reduced
working abilities as follows: to ensure the opportunity for remunerative
working activity for the persons concerned following medical rehabilitation,
work that suits the person’s state of health and vocational qualifications.
The
amendment decree of 1986 introduced the compulsory employment of people with disabilities
by which the problem of how to control the complying with legal obligations of
enterprises was solved and fines as sanction applied.
The
transition from a centrally planned economy to market economy exerted an unfavorable
impact on the structure of employment. Unemployment rose steeply, and the cost
of the passive benefits granted for people with disabilities grew. It became
urgent to create a more effective and transparent legal background. A new
Employment Act came into effect in
During
the past decade, as part of disability policy and mainstream employment policy,
increasing emphasis has been laid on the reform of social security and social
benefit system of people with disabilities. The Act on the rights and equal
opportunities of individuals with disabilities was adopted in 1998. It covers
the complex rehabilitation to be ensured for people with disabilities and, as a
result of rehabilitation, it seeks to enable people with disabilities to enjoy
equal opportunities, independent lives and active participation in social life.
It is an important accomplishment of the law that it bans discrimination
against people with disabilities and defines sanctions for those who violate
that rule. Acting in accordance with that law, the Hungarian National Assembly
adopted a National Program for Disable Persons. The Program is to be taken into
consideration, among other activities, when the central plans are worked out
for employment and training.
1.1 Institutions involved in policy-making
and implementation
In
the 1980s the organization of the institutions of rehabilitation as well as the
tasks and jurisdictions were repeatedly altered. That, coupled with
indifference on behalf of the players in the field, brought about the system’s
low efficiency on the border of paralysis. In the beginning of the 1990s
legislation that sought to improve conditions for people with disabilities
gathered momentum. Several legal instruments of higher and lower level were
adopted in order to reshape the system in accordance with the needs and
possibilities. In harmony with the Employment Act of 1991, the organizational
conditions for the vocational rehabilitation of people with disabilities has
been ensured by the central and local organs of the labor market organization –
which was set up to implement the mainstream employment policy objectives.
These include rules that define the authority and work conditions of local and
regional committees of rehabilitation that are responsible for rehabilitative
employment and training. Professionally, the work of those organs is supervised
by the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs. Rehabilitation task forces have
been set up within the county and local employment offices.
They
are charged with promoting the rehabilitative employment of persons with
reduced working abilities and managing related administrative functions. In
order to manage the complex affairs of individuals with disabilities effectively,
they have to co-operative ever more intensively with the municipalities,
various specialized agencies, the organs of the social security and employers.
The above-mentioned legal instruments oblige the organizations concerned to
co-operate. The role and weight of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has
grown in issues of disability policy and in practical implementation as they
have received considerable financial assistance.
As
from 1998, some of the tasks of the employment offices have been transferred to
so-called public benefit companies. Such tasks are, for instance, offering
guidance for those looking for rehabilitative employment and running programs
and training course that help prepare for employment.
The
1998 Act also established the National Council for Individuals with
disabilities. The Council assists the government in fulfilling its related
functions and takes part in elaborating and implementing the National Program
for People with disabilities. Both the national interest representation organizations
of people with disabilities and non-profit organizations that assist people
with disabilities have delegates on the Council.
1.2 Definition of disability
The
definition of disability and that of persons with disability person can be
found in several legal instruments. Depending on the character of the statute
concerned, they vary in defining the circle of people who belong to their
competence. Those definitions are, as a rule, consistent with the definitions
that can be found in the social security regulations. Let us examine the decree
of 1983 on the employment and social benefits of persons with reduced working
abilities. A person might become qualified living with reduced working abilities if he or she is:
a)
because of reduced
working capacity caused by the deterioration of his state of health, has become
incapable of executing full performance in his original job without rehabilitative
measures but does not receive old-age pension, disability pension,
accident-related disability pension, old-age annuity or work disability
benefit;
b)
receives
accident-related annuity owing to work-related accident or occupational disease
and has become lastingly unable to execute full performance in his original
job;
c)
may not be employed by
his original employer owing to his tuberculosis;
d)
has left the armed forces, armed corps or law-enforcement agencies because
his reduced working abilities or state of ill health make him unsuitable for
service.
According
to the implementing order of the 1991 Act on promoting employment and the
benefits of the unemployed, a person is defined as a persons with reduced
working abilities who lives with physical or mental disability, or whose
chances for obtaining or maintaining employment have decreased following
medical rehabilitation because of his physical or mental impairment.
According
to the 1998 Act on the rights and equal opportunities of people with disabilities,
a person is disabled as far as vocational rehabilitation is concerned if he is
considerably or fully devoid of his mental capacity or the capacity to see,
hear or walk about or his communication is considerably limited and that causes
him a lasting impediment in his active participation in social life.
2 Employment: legal obligations and rights
of employers
An
employer is obliged to strive for employing a laborer with reduced working
abilities in his original position in his original trade. In case that is
impossible, the employer is obliged to ensure within his sphere of activity a
position for the employee where he can utilize his working capacities without
the further deterioration of his state of health. To that end the employer has
to modify working conditions, retrain the employee for doing another type of
work, arrange vocational training, or by transferring the employee concerned to
another workplace, one that corresponds to his age, qualifications and state of
health. A person with reduced working abilities may also be employed in reduced
working hours or in a separate section of the plant arranged for that purpose
or, if the employee’s work concerned makes that possible, he may take work
home. The costs of related measures shall be borne by the employer.
2.1 Compulsory employment
In
order to help people with disabilities find or retain employment, the 1998
amendment of the law on employment obliges a wide spectrum of employers to
employ persons with reduced working abilities. Before 1998 the obligation only
referred to certain categories of business organizations and the sheltered work
establishments. The legislation currently in force obliges all employers
(including non-profit organizations and budget-financed institutions) to employ
persons with reduced working abilities provided their staff is in excess of
twenty persons. The number of persons with reduced working abilities that has
to be employed is 5% of the average statistical size of staff in the year
concerned (as compared to 3% until 1998). For the purpose of establishing the
size of staff, persons who do various categories of work for the benefit of the
public with or without remuneration have to be left out. An employer who fails
to observe his legal employment obligation must pay rehabilitation
contribution. The annual sum of the rehabilitation contribution is the multiple
of the difference between the number of people with disabilities employed and
the prescribed number on the one hand and the rehabilitation contribution on
the other.
2.2 Financial support
The
rehabilitation contributions that are collected form the rehabilitation component
of the Labor Market Fund which is a separated fund of the state budget. That is
the primary source for assisting the employment of people with disabilities. By
granting assistance for employers according to certain criteria – and thus
involving the open labor market in this process – it becomes possible gradually
to build a differentiated employment structure for people with disabilities.
The
rehabilitation component of the Labor Market Fund may be used to assist an employer
who employs a person with a 40% reduction in his working abilities or whose ability
to enter into employment or retain his job are reduced owing to his physical or
mental impairment. Assistance may be granted to capital projects, retrofitting
projects and the expansion of tangible assets, all of which promote the
employment of persons with reduced working abilities provided that such
projects:
-
generate a job for
rehabilitative employment under normal operational conditions or they aim to modernize,
upgrade, expand or keep at a certain level such an existing job, or
-
aim to establish,
upgrade, expand or keep at a certain level, a sheltered work establishment (as
defined by a separate legal instrument), or
-
ensure the purchase, upgrading or modernization of implements that facilitate
the employment of persons with reduced working abilities.
Such
support may be repayable, non-repayable or the two forms may be mixed.
Non-repayable
support may be given to enhance employment security, that is the retaining of a
job, for an employer who is suffering from a temporary liquidity problem and
who employs a person whose reduction of working abilities reaches 40% and is
employed in part time and who (the employer), without such support, would be
forced to close down that job.
Support
may be given from the employment component of the Labor Market Fund to promote
placement for an employer who intends to employ a person with reduced working
abilities who is a registered unemployed. Support may be the form either of
wage supplement, support for work that serves the benefit of the public and/or
paying in the employer’s stead the social security contributions that are
attached to that particular instance of employment.
3 Measures and supports for people with
disabilities
3.1 Sheltered and supported employment
Sheltered
work establishments (the so-called organizations created for a specific purpose
and the social vocational workplaces) play a special role in the employment of
persons with reduced working abilities. A business association may be designated
to be an organization with rehabilitative employment provided a year has passed
since it began rehabilitative employment, in the average of the six months
prior to its application for such designation its average statistical staff
reached at least thirty persons and persons with reduced working abilities
reach at least 60% of the average statistical staff at that company. It is also
a requirement that the applicant business association must ensure health provision
that is adjusted to the state of health of the persons with reduced working
abilities employed there.
Those
legal requirements must be satisfied continuously during the operation of the
business association concerned because support for the company concerned is
based on the persons with reduced working abilities employed there. The size of
the subsidy depends on the nature and degree of the disability of the persons
employed. As a rule the sheltered work establishments are maintained by the
local municipalities, and individuals with disabilities and persons with
reduced working abilities are usually employed for work carried on at home or
out of the home.
The
sheltered work establishments are entitled to subsidies to help them employ
people for the purpose of rehabilitation. The size of the subsidy is determined
by legal instruments.
The
role of alternative employment techniques has in recent years considerably
grown in the field of rehabilitative employment, where the NGOs have realized
fine results in utilizing the working abilities of persons with reduced working
abilities and people with disabilities.
3.2 Vocational training
Taking
into consideration the skills and state
of health of the persons with reduced working abilities, training, or the insurance
of vocational training, is the duty, in the first place, of the employer (at
the time when the reduction of working abilities is established). The employer
may apply for financial support to that activity. The persons with reduced working
abilities and individuals with disabilities may attend, in addition to the
training institutions that are available for the society at large, rehabilitative
and general-purpose training program run by the employment offices. The
services offered by the labor market organization are free of charge. The
special institutions that are established in order to train or retrain people
with disabilities offer their services by taking into consideration the
conditions of the persons with disabilities. Such institutions have specially
trained teaching staff who can carry out effective training. The NGOs play an
important role also in this field. However, the number of applicants who seek
training at such institutions by far exceeds the number of places available.
3.3 Protection against dismissal
In
cases defined by law, the employment of a person with reduced working abilities
may not be terminated by ordinary notice. The ban on notice does not refer to
that person with reduced working abilities who is employed by a firm that
employs fewer than twenty persons. Other such cases are as follows:
-
such a person
repeatedly fails to do his job properly or is incapable of doing his work,
except when his unsatisfactory work performance or his inability derives from
the reduction of his working abilities,
-
an employer ensures a
new workplace for his employee of
reduced working abilities (one that suits his state of health, age and
qualifications) within his sphere of activity or in an identical workshop at
another employer – heeding the advice of the local committee of rehabilitation
– or comes forward with a recommendation on training or attending a vocational
training course or school but the persons with reduced working abilities does
not accept the employer’s initiative,
-
the person with reduced
working abilities is entitled to old-age pension, disability pension, accident
disability pension, old-age annuity or work disability benefit,
-
neither the employer, nor the committee of rehabilitation concerned can ensure
a suitable workplace.
These
statutory provisions protect both the persons with reduced working abilities
and the employers. As for the latter, the law protects them from undue burdens
that can derive from the employment of persons whose working abilities are low.
3.4 Financial support
A person with reduced
working abilities who cannot be employed in his original job is entitled – on
the basis of the conditions defined by the decree of 1983 (as for instance, the
measure of the decrease in his working abilities, the impact of his health
impairment on his working performance) – to earnings supplement, temporary
earnings supplement, income supplement or temporary income supplement. The size
of support and the duration of entitlement are determined by several factors.
They vary in the various forms of social welfare support. Entitlement is only
valid if the person concerned is ready to accept the rehabilitative measure of
the employer and he participates in the rehabilitative procedure. The earnings
supplement and the income supplement are awarded for the duration of retraining
(in a training course it can be a maximum of twelve months, in vocational training
a higher sum is awarded for a maximum of thirty months). An unemployed person
with reduced working abilities may become entitled to the so-called training
assistance, which covers his training-related costs plus earnings supplement.
People with severe disabilities
older than 18 years of age are entitled to partial reimbursement of extra
expenses stemming from their disabilities.