That being said, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is well above the national average. As a result, 12.4 percent are without employment. The culprit is the so-called equalization levy companies with more than 20 employees can opt to pay if they don’t meet the obligatory quota for hiring people with severe disabilities. At a mere 320 euros per month, it is far too low to truly create an incentive to meet the five percent quota in companies.
And yet, there are more people with disabilities who are well-qualified for the job. Among the more than 170,000 employable people who have a severe disability, there are proportionally more skilled workers than among the unemployed without disabilities (as of November 2017). Still, the former are less successful in finding employment in the primary labor market. All in all, they need about 100 additional days to find employment compared to their peers without disabilities.
In addition to preconceptions when it comes to handling workload, another reason for companies and businesses to avoid people with disabilities - although obligated to employ them – is the lack of knowledge by potential employers in terms of available assistance and services. "We have a comprehensive and differentiated assistance program pertaining to inclusion and rehabilitation. Rehabilitation authorities and integration offices are able to support employers with a wide range of services that facilitate work participation. However, small and medium-sized companies often deem the assistance system confusing, fragmented and non-transparent: the different jurisdictions and responsibilities, application modalities and procedural processes are often seen as bureaucratic hurdles. The system does not adequately address the needs, possibilities, and limitations of these companies," Manfred Otto-Albrecht summarizes the problems companies face. In his work with the corporate network INKLUSION, the project manager sees the barriers companies face when it comes to employing and supporting people with disabilities. The network offers businesses and companies the information, guidance, and support they need to improve the collaboration with the assistance programs and make them more effective. What’s more, "roundtables" are held on a regular basis to facilitate an experience exchange, as well as enable companies and different representatives from integration offices, Federal Employment Agencies or Compulsory Health Insurance to get to know each other.
"We have learned that small and medium-sized companies, in particular, need reliable support that cannot be provided by always changing, regional or temporary projects. Assistance must be structural and adapted to companies in terms of mindset and expertise. It requires a flexible organization to address the changing needs of day-to-day business operations and reflect the fundamental changes in the workplace and the resulting new needs and requirements."
Yet even if you meet a potential employer with no preconceptions, if you know your rights and have overcome all the bureaucratic hurdles, you still need one more thing in Germany in the year 2018: patience. And some flexibility: "It’s not just the employer that must be accommodating, you also have to be willing to cooperate," the budding carpenter Völzmann explains.