The Japanese government Tuesday apologized for routinely overstating the number of disabled people it employed to meet legal quotas in a “highly regrettable” scandal.<\/p>\n
Thousands of able-bodied employees at 27 ministries and government agencies were wrongly counted as disabled, Tokyo admitted.<\/p>\n
“We deeply apologize for something that should not have happened to the government, which has a responsibility to secure and stabilize employment of people with disabilities,” government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference.<\/p>\n
He announced the creation of a working group headed by the labor ministry to investigate how the disabled employment figures were padded and urged regional authorities to conduct similar probes.<\/p>\n
Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said thousands of people were wrongly counted as having disabilities in the government figures. In one example, a person with diabetes was counted towards the quota.<\/p>\n
When the figures were revised, the ratio of government employees with disabilities dropped from 2.49 percent to 1.19 percent.<\/p>\n
Last fiscal year, Japan set a hiring quota in government ministries of at least 2.3 percent, with a quota of 2.0 percent for the private sector.<\/p>\n
“We will make efforts to meet the legal requirement this year. But if that becomes difficult, we will draft a plan to achieve the goal next year, as the law requires us to do,” Kato told reporters.<\/p>\n
The situation is “highly regrettable,” Kato added.<\/p>\n
The Japan Council on Disability, which represents people with disabilities, said the scandal had caused an “immeasurable shockwave”.<\/p>\n
“This implies that deep down the government as a whole is hoping not to hire disabled workers. This is nothing but discrimination against impaired people,” the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Internal affairs minister Seiko Noda, whose son has disabilities, told reporters earlier this month that officials at her ministry had confirmed manipulating data.<\/p>\n
“I was extremely shocked to hear that such a thing was happening, even though I don’t know the exact number,” said Noda.<\/p>\n
“Speaking as the mother of a disabled child, not as the internal affairs minister, this is something I cannot allow,” she added.<\/p>\n
The scandal is an embarrassment for Japan’s government two years before the country hosts the Summer Olympics and Paralympics.<\/p>\n
The government has sought to improve access for people with disabilities and boost their integration into society ahead of the games.\u00a0 \u00a0\/vvp<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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