Now the City of Copenhagen’s suppliers must employ employees with disabilities

From 1 August, suppliers to the Municipality of Copenhagen must employ employees with a disability. This was decided by the Copenhagen City Council at its meeting on Thursday evening.

With the clause, the politicians at Copenhagen City Hall want to ensure that more people with disabilities enter the labor market.

It is social mayor Karina Vestergård Madsen (Ø), who last year took the initiative together with a number of other parties to propose the requirement that will apply to suppliers of a certain size.

“It is a big problem that many people with disabilities cannot find a job. I would like to push for more companies to open their eyes to the fact that people with a disability are also valuable employees for them. Especially in a time when there is a shortage of labour, I am sure that many companies will discover that it can be part of the solution” says Karina Vestergård Madsen and continues:

“Many companies are not aware of how much qualified labor they are missing out on when they do not also focus on hiring people with a disability. I hope that the new social clause will correct that. And I am convinced that the companies will find that they bring in some employees with qualifications that can create great value.”

The Municipality of Copenhagen is already demanding that the municipality’s suppliers have apprenticeships and company internships.

The new clause will basically apply to suppliers on contracts that exceed a total value of DKK 5 million. kroner. A preliminary estimate shows that the municipality includes approx. 160 new contracts per year in that order of magnitude.

It will be up to the administration that enters into the contract to make a concrete assessment of how many people with a disability the individual supplier must employ.