The objective of the thesis is to examine the problem of employment of people with disabilities. The unemployment rate among people with disabilities is extremely high; the number of unemployed people with disabilities was 9,138 in 2006 and 13,132 in 2009. Nevertheless, despite all the laws of the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union governing the employment of people with disabilities, the situation is improving too slowly. The unemployment has a very negative impact on people with disabilities as a specific social group, as they feel socially excluded and marginalized. Despite the progress made in legislation they remain a marginalized group in society. The purpose of the thesis is examine the opinions of employers and the reasons for employing physically handicapped persons, and to determine, how opinions, experience and knowledge affect the employment of such persons. This thesis presents the legislation that enables employment of people with disabilities under specific conditions and offers special subsidies to the companies that employ people with disabilities. There is an overview of physical handicap, its history, characteristics and most common types, as well as opinions, prejudices and stereotypes that may cause the employers not to employ people with disabilities. The empirical part presents interviews with four employers that employ people with disabilities and on the basis of these interviews investigates the reasons why physically handicapped persons are not employed and the obstacles employers and employees face. The answers are processed with a qualitative methodology and interpreted in three parts: the first part focuses on the obstacles in employment and the influence of the past experience on the current employment, the second part covers the views regarding the physically handicapped persons and the third part covers the knowledge of legislation on employing people with disabilities.
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