One of the activities implemented by the Youth with Disabilities Forum as part of the project “Job Fit: Economic Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities” is a survey of the needs of the labor market in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica, Zrenjanin, Valjevo and Niš. The aim of the research is to determine the needs of employers and employment opportunities for people with disabilities in the six local governments.

Research findings show that, as in the case of the general population of employees, employed persons with disabilities most often have completed high school education, followed by higher education and university. However, in relation to the structure of the general population of employees, people with disabilities on average have a lower level of education (88% of employees with disabilities have a high school education, compared to 56% of employees in the general population with a high school education).

An important fact that the research pointed to is that the reasons for not hiring people with disabilities are that employers most often cite failure to find a suitable person (77%), insufficient knowledge about the process of hiring people with disabilities (54%), or the employer states that it does not have the staff to provide adequate type of support for people with disabilities (29%).

As it is also pointed out, companies that still maintain a traditional type of employment and do not organize work from home as an option, more often state that the obstacle for them to employ a person with disabilities is insufficient financial resources to ensure adapted working conditions and infrastructure.

“Hybrid work and remote work are emerging trends and are currently available more often in big cities – Belgrade and Novi Sad, as well as in companies that are large or medium and have enough capacity and digital knowledge to adopt this model.” Companies that already have people with disabilities who work hybrid and remote testify that this practice has proven to be extremely good. “Some of the companies that are additionally motivated and engaged to hire people with disabilities purposely open ‘remote’ positions in order to facilitate the hiring process,” the research states.

When it comes to familiarity with policies and procedures in the field of employment of persons with disabilities, companies are divided, and 43 percent of employers are somewhat or completely aware, a third are not sure, while every fourth employer believes that they are not sufficiently familiar with these policies and procedures.

The entire report is available at the link https://fmi.rs/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Istrazivanje-trzista-rada.pdf

The project “Job Fit: Economic empowerment of persons with disabilities” is financed by the American Agency for International Development (USAID), and is implemented by the Youth with disabilities Forum, with partners – the Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation, Smart Kolektiv, Caritas Serbia and the Center for independent living of persons with disabilities Serbia.