The number of state-supported jobs for disabled people stands at 60,000 compared to about 44,000 in 2010, representing an increase of 15,000 over the past four years, Deputy State Secretary Attila Fülöp from the Ministry of Human Resources said at a press conference on Tuesday in the town of Jászapáti in north-central Hungary.

He also said that the number of disabled people who were registered as jobless fell by 40 percent from the beginning of 2013, when it stood at 32,000 compared to the current level of 18,000. A total of 30,000 disabled people work at 300 enterprises whose main workforce consists of people with similar disabilities, and 22,000 found employment with the help of the disability card introduced last year.

Ildikó Bernát, President of the Workforce Policy Coordination Council, said at the press conference that as part of the New Széchenyi Economic Development Plan the state had spent five billion forints (EUR 16 million) on training disabled people and finding employment for them. She said that three large state-owned companies were involved in the project, from which 5,000 of the 8,300 disabled employees had benefited. Training courses are held at 96 locations, 80 percent of them in rural areas of the country.

György Szabó, CEO of one of these state-owned companies, public waste disposal and cleaning firm FŐKEFE, said that the company employs 3,000 disabled people at 76 locations across the country, including work commissioned by major international companies.

(Ministry of Human Resources)