Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine #659 of May 27, 2026

Who is affected: employers; the State Labor Service and its territorial bodies; people with disabilities; the Pension Fund of Ukraine.

Summary:

  • establishes a clear mechanism for overseeing compliance with the workplace quota for people with disabilities through scheduled and unscheduled inspections by the State Labor Service (a dedicated bylaw framework was previously absent, although the general powers of the State Labor Service existed);
  • differentiates the frequency of scheduled inspections depending on the degree of risk:
    • for high-risk employers — no more than once every two years;
    • medium-risk — once every three years;
    • low-risk — once every five years;
  • obliges the State Labor Service to notify the employer of a scheduled inspection no later than ten days before it begins;
  • limits the duration of inspections:
    • scheduled — no more than ten working days, for small businesses — five days;
    • unscheduled — ten days, for small businesses — two days;
  • extensions of these periods are not permitted;
  • clearly defines the grounds for an unscheduled inspection: failure to comply with a previous directive, a complaint from an individual with supporting evidence attached, information from the Pension Fund indicating signs of violations, or the employer’s own request;
  • records in the inspection report not only the fact of compliance or non-compliance with the quota, but also the wage level of the employed people with disabilities and the number of those belonging to categories entitling the employer to double counting;
  • grants employers a clear list of rights during an inspection, including the right to deny inspectors access in the event of a violation of the established procedures.

What is right:

The procedure is a necessary complement to the recently introduced mechanism of double counting for people with Group I disabilities and Group II disabilities with visual impairments or mental disorders.

Recording the wage level of people with disabilities in the inspection report is a fundamentally important detail: it makes it possible to identify situations in which the quota is formally met, but the person receives the minimum wage without being provided with proper employment.

The employer’s right to deny inspectors access in the event of procedural violations is an important anti-corruption safeguard that protects against abuses by the oversight body.

What is wrong:

The procedure does not define what happens after a directive is issued to an employer who systematically fails to comply with the quota: what liability arises, within what deadlines, and who applies it. A directive is merely a demand to remedy the violation, but without specific sanctions for failing to comply with it, its effectiveness may be limited.

The ground for an unscheduled inspection in the form of “information from the Pension Fund containing signs of violations” is vague: the procedure does not clarify what exactly constitutes “signs of violations” or how this information is verified before becoming the basis for an inspection.

Alternative solution:

The procedure needs to be supplemented with a provision on the consequences of failing to comply with a directive: clear response deadlines, a transition to an unscheduled inspection with the automatic application of the sanctions provided for by the Law on the Fundamentals of Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities.

It would also be worth providing for a public register of inspection results — without employees’ personal data, but with aggregated information on quota compliance levels by sector and region: this would allow civil society and people with disabilities themselves to assess the practice of quota compliance and identify systemic problems.

What happened:

The resolution completes the formation of a mechanism for ensuring compliance with the employment quota for people with disabilities. Whereas the state previously introduced an incentive for employers to hire people with the most severe forms of disability through the double counting mechanism, it is now establishing a mechanism for verifying whether the quota is being met at all.

Without oversight, any quota is merely a wish. At the same time, the effectiveness of this system will depend on the timely approval of risk criteria, the capacity of the State Labor Service to carry out the inspections, and the effectiveness of the mechanisms for responding to identified violations.