Have services and opportunities for workers with disabilities in Singapore become better or worse over the past couple of years? What more needs to be done?

THE number of social enterprises that aim to help the less fortunate, including People With Disabilities (PWDs), has increased over the past few years. This appears to be a growing trend that, coupled with the increasing focus on Corporate Social Responsibility by corporates, bodes well for this community. The recent Budget 2012 is a positive step forward in the right direction as it extends the Special Employment Credit (SEC) to employers that hire PWDs who have graduated from VWO-run Special Education (SPED) schools regardless of age.

It is perhaps too early to determine whether more needs to be done at this point in time. We will need to see whether the SEC measure is effective in getting more PWDs gainfully employed. So let’s see how this initiative pans out in the next 12 months first.

Source: The Business Times, 5 March 2012