【Aging, safety net and fiscal crisis in Japan】No.265: The number of employees with disabilities is steadily increasing

The number of people with disabilities that are employed by private companies has continued to steadily increase after doubling from 246,284 in 2002 to 495,706 in 2017 (Column No.44), reaching 560,609 in 2019 (Figure 1). In private companies, 2.11% of all employed people have disabilities and this figure is likely to soon reach 2.2%, which is the statutory employment rate of people with disabilities (Table 1). In national and local governments, this rate is also increasing. Therefore, the government decided to increase the statutory employment rate by 0.1 percentage points from January 2022.

The Public Employment Security Office system has contributed to an increase in the number of employees with disabilities. This is an administrative agency established by the government for the purpose of ensuring stable employment opportunities for people, and is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The number of people with disabilities that got a job through the recruitment of the public employment security office was 103,163 in 2019 (Table 2). In terms of the disability type composition, the proportion of psychiatrically disabled people doubled from 24.1% in 2009 to 48.1% in 2019. As shown in Figure 2, the industry that most employs people with disabilities is healthcare/welfare, accounting for 34.6%.

Figure 1: Number of employees with disabilities in private companies

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare

Table 1: Statutory employment rate for disabled people by type of workplace

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare

Table 2: Number of people with disabilities who got a job

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare

Figure 2: Composition of industries in which people with disabilities got a job

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare