Macau Special Olympics chief Hetzer Siu Yu Hong said on Tuesday that since the city’s disabled people tended to change jobs frequently many of them missed out on stable career development prospects.
Siu urged the disabled, including the mentally handicapped, to develop their occupational skills. He also encouraged them to take up sport.
He pointed out that because disabled people tend to switch jobs frequently they are unable to have a stable career and thus lose out on promotion prospects. He suggested that the government and the private sector provide more occupational training courses to assist disabled people in preparing themselves for more stable and better career opportunities.
Siu made the remarks on the sidelines of an activity held at MGM in Zape, which was organised by Macau Special Olympics to encourage employers to hire people with disabilities.
Asked by reporters about the current situation on employment prospects for the disabled, Siu said that according to data collated by his group, about 90 percent of the mildly mentally handicapped can find a job, while nearly 50 percent of those moderately mentally handicapped are able to find employment. However, he also said that only 10 percent of the severely handicapped were working.
“We are quite satisfied with the [current] employment situation of the disabled… [but] many handicapped people often change their jobs. Some just work for a few months and then change jobs while others switch jobs because they are offered just about a hundred [patacas] more to work somewhere else,” Siu said.
Siu also said that, consequently, most of them have difficulty in accumulating working experience so that it was hard for them to pursue promotion opportunities, making it difficult from them to enjoy a stable career development.
Siu also said that most disabled people are hired in jobs that involve physically demanding work although some of them have tried different jobs such as car mechanics. He reaffirmed that disabled people need more occupational training courses. (macaunews/macaupost)
