Ergonomics and workplace adaptation to people with disabilities

Abstract

People with disabilities (PD) account for about 15% of the world population, or one billion people [1]. Within this context, the inclusion of this population in the social-labor environment has been widely discussed and encouraged by various laws. Some countries stipulate quotas for the employment of disabled people in public and private sectors. Germany has a quota of 5% for the employment of severely disabled employees in firms employing more than 20 people. Turkey has a 3% quota for firms with more than 50 workers [1]. Whereas in Brazil, laws establish a quota of 20% for public sector enterprises and of 2% to 5% for private companies with over 100 employees. Despite the attempts to include people with disabilities at work, the number of such people seeking employment and of those receiving job opportunities remains low. Data from several countries show that employment rates of PD are smaller than the general population [1]. A recent study showed that in 27 countries working-age persons with disabilities, on average, their employment rate, at 44%, was over half that for persons without disability (75%) [2]. Several researches indicate that the main difficulties faced by persons with disabilities to enter the workplace are: the lack of adequate education and training [3, 4], work experience [5], misconceptions about the ability of people with disabilities to perform Jobs [6, 7] and belief that people with disabilities are less productive than their non-disabled counterparts [8]. Thus, it is verified that job accommodation to people with disabilities is a tough task that has encountered some difficulties, such as the lack of offering professional training to PD, the presence of architectural and organizational barriers and discrimination regarding a PD’s functional potential. Thus, it is essential to understand the interaction between PD and the elements of the work system.

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