Boosting employment among disabled people in Brussels

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38 innovative projects have been supported to help employ people with disabilities. In addition, this project has inspired entrepreneurial daring and equipped the management of social enterprises with tools to enhance the research and development of new economic activities.Michaël Lans, Coordinateur Dev’Up TeamDev’Up Team aims to develop or diversify the activities of 11 Brussels-based adapted work companies in order to help keep disabled people employed and develop dynamics within these companies that will lead to new economic opportunities and, therefore, enhance employment for this type of employee.The project involves researching new economic activities with a project development team, assessing the need for training in developing entrepreneurial daring and innovation, and implementing said training.Reducing competition and unemploymentAdapted work companies are social economy enterprises that help find jobs for people with disabilities. The means for achieving this goal are economic. In fact, they offer services and products on competitive markets within a commercial framework. For simple handling professions carried out, for the most part, by the least autonomous employees, adapted work companies face external competition that they cannot compete with, such as the prison workforce, the growing machine automation sector or even cheap labour in the developing world. They must also deal with harsh competition from within the same sector.The range of services offered by adapted work companies is relatively stable thanks to maximum employment quotas set by the three Belgian regions, but the demand is relatively limited. The growing scarcity of manual labour sub-contracting professions has had an impact on the prices offered by adapted work companies, who bear the brunt of the costs by dipping into their reserves in order to endure this situation in the medium term. Adapted work companies try to diversify their activities in order to maintain the volume of job opportunities. However, several economic indicators show that these efforts only seem to slow down job losses or the number of days the target public spend in economic unemployment.Sharing servicesThe aim of the project is to develop the activities of 11 adapted work companies subsidised by the French Community Commission in order to keep people with disabilities employed and create new, more long-lasting employment opportunities. To this end, it has provided a team of project developers and personalised coaching to help improve innovation-related entrepreneurial skills among the management teams of the 11 adapted work companies. Sharing the services of an R&D department between 11 adapted work companies is, in itself, an innovative concept.In the same vein, management teams from 10 adapted work companies have undergone training provided by Solvay Brussels School. Moreover, 38 projects have been supported on behalf of 11 adapted work companies, half of which are ‘established’ or are being implemented. These structures provide employment for 1,390 workers with disabilities, and 250 supervisors.Job creationTo ensure the success of this project, the Dev’Up Team has recruited 2.7 ETP directly for a two and a half year period. However, it is difficult to calculate the current number of jobs directly created by the project because all the activities initiated are in their early stages and will not reach their cruising speed for a few years. In the best case scenario, this project will have lead to the creation or reconversion of 100 jobs, 90 of which are targeted at people with disabilities.Total investment and European fundingTotal investment for the project ‘Dev’Up Team-FEBRAP’ is EUR 720 365; the Cohesion Fund contribution is EUR 300 000 through the ‘Brussels Capital Region’ cooperation programme for the 2014-2020 programming period. The investment falls under the ‘Jobs, Growth and Investment’ priority.