Cabinet Resolution #490 of April 1, 2026

Who is affected: employers; people with Group I and Group II disabilities; the Fund for Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities.

Summary:

  • the resolution introduces a double-counting mechanism: one employed person with a Group I disability, or a person with a Group II disability with a visual impairment or mental disorder, counts as two jobs for the employer in fulfilling the quota — in effect, making it twice as easy to meet quota requirements for those who hire people with the most severe forms of disabilities;
  • a mandatory condition for double counting is introduced: the person’s remuneration must exceed the minimum wage, which should prevent purely formal “on paper” employment solely for the purpose of meeting the quota;
  • the resolution contains an exhaustive list of documents confirming the right to double counting, taking into account both the new system for assessing a person’s functioning and documents issued before January 1, 2025, under the old medical and social expert commission system;
  • if a person’s disability status changes or is lost, the right to double counting ends from the next quarter after the employer becomes aware of this.

What is right:

The double-counting mechanism is an economically sound incentive: instead of imposing fines for failure to meet quotas, the state offers bonuses for hiring people who face the greatest barriers to employment. The condition that wages must be above the minimum wage is a fundamentally important detail. It cuts off schemes of fictitious employment and ensures that behind the legal provision there are real jobs with real income.

Including extracts from decisions of the new expert teams alongside old medical and social expert commission certificates in the list of documents is a technically necessary step during the transition period of the disability assessment reform.

What happened:

The resolution is part of a broader reform of the employment system for people with disabilities — a transition from the logic of fines for failure to meet quotas to the logic of incentives for hiring people with real barriers. The double-counting mechanism is the right tool within this logic: it makes what previously was merely mandatory beneficial.