The research was driven by the following questions:

• What happens to people who become disabled during their working lives?
  
  
• Do they retain their jobs with their last employers?
  
  
• Do they return to the open labour market and search for employment elsewhere?
  
  
• How well are they assisted in either retaining their jobs or finding new ones?
  
  
• Do they give up seeking employment altogether? If so, why?
  

The research identified linkages between equal opportunity strategies, disability benefit and management systems, rehabilitation and other support systems, all elements important for increasing the rates of job retention and return-to-work, and therefore, helped to determine:

• What policies and programmes work efficiently and cost-effectively;
  
  
• Hhow one country can benefit from the experience of another;
  
  
• In what areas more information, action or research are needed to promote cost-effective strategies for job-retention and return-to-work that benefit disabled people, enterprises and society at large.
  
  

Publications

An International Symposium on Job Retention and Return to Work Strategies for Disabled Workers was held in Washington D.C. in May 1998 as an integral part of the project.

The findings of the research, Key Issues, as well as national study reports have been published.


For more information, contact:
IFP/Skills ifpskills@ilo.org