Employment Policy For People With Disabilities In Saudi Arabia - Research Paper Example

Just like Dahlgren (2005) finds, within regard to these laws and lawsuits that tend to formulate policies that streamline employment for people with disabilities, this research also finds that there are still other key challenges that Saudi Arabia is still facing with regard to disabled. That is, looking at the statistics such as institutions of persons with disabilities being in urban areas than in rural areas it is realised that there is low employment rates in rural areas for people with different disabilities and this confirms that fact that the country is still lacking stratified strategy and policy that considers the employability of persons with disability in rural areas.

This translates that there is high dependency on benefits, increasing public spending on disability benefits and or sickness as well as escalated poverty risk among those with disabilities. This discussion is also supported by the revised Lisbon Strategy with respect to policies guiding employment of people with disabilities in rural areas in Arabian countries (Gibson and Abrams, 2003). This is to mean that in as much as there are labour codes that this study has reviewed (Labour code law was legislated in the year 1969 which emphasis mainly on labour rights and focuses on detailed vocational rehabilitation for persons with disabilities, The Basic System, Article 27 which was legislated in the year 1992) the achievement of a general employment rate of 70% by 2020 and the new European Union directives has not been followed by these policies especially in rural areas.

Contrariwise, this study finds that in the last decade, government has placed increasing emphasis in the country to reinforce the labour market and social inclusions of people with disabilities. As noted in chapter five of the study (recruitment, training and development, promotion, sickness or absence management and redundancy or terminations are the dominant policies in most of the organisations), policies such as Regulation of Rehabilitation Program No. 1355 which looks towards establishing a rehabilitation program at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to prepare persons with disabilities for employment generation in the country can be mentioned as one of such emphasis.

It is worth noting therefore that the country is successful and in fact has attained more explicitly the movement away from passive to active measures which has been done by the implementations of legislative instruments and policies (such as obligatory employment quota schemes, anti-discrimination legislation, job protection rights) which chapter two also identified as progress the country has adopted to ensure disabled have equal employment opportunities in the country. Integrating this with Decree No.

129 which was legislated in the year 1976 as policy, it can be agreed that the country has targeted active labour market policies, which aim to support the participation of people with disabilities.