Lyons to unveil strategy to boost disability employment in Northern Ireland
By Eniola Amadu
A new Stormont strategy designed to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities is to be launched by Communities Minister Gordon Lyons.
Lyons will outline his plans for a Disability and Work Strategy in a statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly, setting out measures to make workplaces more accessible and inclusive.
Alongside the strategy, the minister will announce a new initiative aimed at helping people of working age who are on benefits to re-enter the labour market.
Lyons said he wanted to “open up opportunities and to break down barriers to employment”, emphasising the need for practical support to help individuals with health conditions or disabilities find sustainable work.
Figures from the Department for Communities (DfC) show that Northern Ireland’s economic inactivity rate stands at 26 per cent, meaning that more than 300,000 people of working age are not active in the labour market.
Almost 40 per cent of that total is attributed to ill-health or disability.
According to DfC, Northern Ireland continues to have the lowest disability employment rate in the UK, at 41.3%, compared with a UK-wide rate of 52.8 per cent
The department said the new strategy aims to create an “inclusive and welcoming labour market” to ensure that more people with disabilities or long-term health conditions can access meaningful employment.
Lyons acknowledged that the region’s record on disability employment “has not been good enough” and said that “real change is needed” to improve outcomes.
“My focus is on those who have felt excluded from the world of work and making sure that the right supports are in place at the right time,” he said.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) minister is also expected to announce a JobStart scheme, which he described as the “biggest jobs programme of its kind”.
The initiative will build on previous efforts to support benefit claimants into employment and is expected to include financial and training assistance for both workers and employers.
“The programme will have a range of supports for new employees and also for employers to ensure positive pathways to work,” Lyons said.
“It will build upon the success of previous programmes recently delivered by the department, which were positively endorsed both by employers and jobseekers.”
The Department for Communities said the JobStart scheme is intended to strengthen the regional economy by addressing skills shortages, reducing dependency on benefits, and supporting individuals with barriers to employment.
Officials have indicated that both the Disability and Work Strategy and the JobStart programme are part of a broader departmental focus on tackling economic inactivity and promoting inclusion across Northern Ireland’s workforce.
