‘Include people with disabilities in labour market’

The government should take steps to ensure that people with disabilities are properly included in the labour market, experts said today at a webinar jointly organised by Bangladesh Business And Disability Network (BBDN) and Bangladesh Employers Federation (BEF) with The Daily Star.

For this, the employers should change their mindset and steps should be taken to boost the confidence of the physically challenged people and people with special needs, they said.
Focus should also be given to remove the barriers to employment of women with disabilities, they said in a webinar.
Simon Brown, global technical lead (economic empowerment) of Sightsavers International, presented the keynote speech at the event on "Towards a Covid-resilient disability inclusive labour market".
Over 60 percent of the employees of the informal sector had lost jobs at some stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, mostly in the months of April and May of 2020, said Brown.
Around 85 percent of them remained unemployed for more than a month and nearly 30 percent for more than three months, he said.

Business associations and chambers came together and expressed their earnest interest to work for the benefit of the most disadvantaged group.