Epress.am News from Armenia
The Armenian government on January 1 temporarily suspended and made changes to a program that provides partial wage compensation to employers who hire those who cannot compete in the labor market, said Executive Director of Unison NGO, a nonprofit organization that provides support to people with disabilities in Armenia, Armen Alaverdyan (pictured) in Yerevan today.
"It was a very effective program and gained momentum. The advantage was that it was designed for two years. For two consecutive years, the state was obliged to compensate employers to provide employment to people with disabilities. Mostly it was profitable for small businesses, but now the term has been changed to 6 months, which cannot generate the interest of employers," he said.
Unison NGO public relations chief Marianna Chalikyan added that in the past the program was applicable to all people with disabilities but now it applies only to those whom the state has registered as having a "level one" disability.
"The [new] program will extend also to those who, in addition to belonging to a disability group, also have other issues, say, were victims of trafficking. You have to understand that if a person with a disability has been working for 2 years, he becomes competitive in the job market and if the employer doesn’t wish to keep him as an employee after 2 years, he has a greater likelihood of finding employment than he who has [only] 6 months of work experience," said Chalikyan.