As part of the effort to encourage employment of people with disabilities, companies are required to ensure the employment rate of disabled workers is above the legal standard. With the rate for private firms raised from 2.5% to 2.7% in July 2026, this article reviews how to calculate the employment rate of disabled workers or the number of employees.
[1] How to calculate the number of disabled workers
The required number of disabled workers is determined based on the total number of regular employees. Regular employees refers to workers whose weekly work hours are 20 hours or more and have been or are expected to be employed for more than one year.
A worker whose weekly work hours are 30 hours or more is counted as 1, while a worker whose work hours are 20 hours or more and less than 30 hours is counted as 0.5. For example, if a company has 30 regular employees, 5 full-time non-regular workers and 8 part-time workers who work 20 hours or more and less than 30 hours per week, the total number of regular employees comes to 39 (30 + 5 + 8 x 0.5). By multiplying with the new statutory employment rate, the required number of disabled workers is 1.053, indicating that this company must have at least one worker with disabilities.
[2] How to count workers with disabilities
As explained above, the required number of disabled workers is determined based on the number of regular employees. Under this rule, disabled workers are counted as below, according to the types of disabilities and weekly working hours.
Figure: Count of workers according to scheduled working hours
|
Weekly work hours
Disability types |
30 hours or more |
20 hours or more and less than 30 hours |
10 hours or more and less than 20 hours |
|
Physical disability |
1 |
0.5 |
- |
|
Severe |
2 |
1 |
0.5 |
|
Intellectual disability |
1 |
0.5 |
- |
|
Severe |
2 |
1 |
0.5 |
|
Mental disability |
1 |
1* |
0.5 |
* Tentative measure
Since April 2024, workers with severe physical or intellectual disabilities or mental disabilities working 10 hours or more and less than 20 hours per week can be counted as 0.5.
[3] Counting of workers on leave of absence
When companies check whether the mandatory employment rate is satisfied, scheduled monthly working hours and actual hours worked are used.
If a disabled worker is taking leave of absence set forth in the Rules of Employment or the employment contract during the period, the worker can be included in the count as long as the leave is objectively confirmed with a notice of leave or other documents.
Please check if the requirement is met, based on the number of employees. Companies failing to satisfy the statutory employment rate need to increase effort to hire and retain such workers with disabilities and endure the requirement will be met continuously.
