In this REHACARE.com interview, Christoph Beyer explains how this affects employees with disabilities, describes the steps it would take to lead people from long-term unemployment to a more inclusive labor force participation in the future, and reveals the lessons we should draw for the post-COVID labor market.
Mr. Beyer, you are the chairman of the Federal Association of Integration Offices and Principal Welfare Offices (BIH) and posited in an interview with the Rhineland Regional Association (Landschaftsverband Rheinland, LVR) that the current situation will reveal whether Germany truly takes inclusion seriously. COVID-19 has exposed many weak spots that Germany must rectify in the future. How worried are you that inclusion efforts will fall by the wayside?
Christoph Beyer: Fear is always a complex emotion. Since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force over ten years ago, Germany has had sustained economic growth with a steadily declining unemployment rate. All the measures that have been underway over the last decade – the Bundesteilhabegesetz (Federal Participation Act), the amendment of social assistance and services with a new sectioning from the German Social Code Book XII to Book IX (editor’s note: integration assistance services are now segregated from social welfare benefits) – took place in a powerful economic context. The social assistance system underwent expansion in recent years, which also benefitted people with disabilities.
Multiple factors affect our current situation: on the one hand, there is the pandemic and the resulting reorganization of the way we work. An aging population is another important aspect. These demographic changes are also reflected in companies as their workforce is gradually aging. The digitization of the workplace plays yet another major role. More and more so-called "menial" jobs that take comparatively little training or skill are disappearing and are being replaced or assisted by robots. This means that we barely require workers to handle assembly-line tasks today. Human-machine interaction comes into play here. Machines are designed to make work easier, but not necessarily displace people. You have to perform a delicate balancing act as a result.