Georgia’s law requires employers with more than 50 staff to employ a minimum share of workers with disabilities. The quota has never been systematically enforced.
Georgia’s Law on Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities, in its current form following the 2022 amendments, contains a provision requiring employers with more than 50 employees to maintain a workforce in which at least 1 percent of positions are filled by persons with disabilities. The provision is framed as a reasonable accommodation obligation combined with an employment quota — a hybrid approach that reflects international disability employment practice in countries that have moved beyond purely anti-discrimination frameworks.
The employment situation of persons with disabilities in Georgia is severe. The most recent comprehensive data, from a 2021 UNDP-supported survey, found that only 19 percent of working-age Georgians with disabilities were employed, compared to 51 percent of the general working-age population — an employment rate gap of 32 percentage points. Among those employed, 68 percent worked in the informal sector (compared to 37 percent for the general population), and average earnings were approximately 45 percent below the general average for comparable age groups. These figures have not materially improved since the 2019 survey.
The quota provision has never been enforced. No employer has been sanctioned for non-compliance. The Labour Inspection Service has no dedicated disability employment compliance unit and no established methodology for verifying quota compliance during inspections. The Public Defender’s Office, which has a mandate to monitor disability rights, has issued recommendations to individual employers on reasonable accommodation in specific cases but has not taken up quota non-compliance as a systemic enforcement priority.
The legal framework that exists around the quota provision is also incomplete. The law does not specify which categories of disability qualify for quota purposes, how employers should document compliance, what monitoring reporting obligations employers have, or what the sanctions for non-compliance are. These implementation gaps mean that even a committed employer seeking to comply with the law in good faith would find it difficult to establish whether they have done so.
International experience with disability employment quotas is mixed — in some countries they have proven effective, in others they have produced nominal compliance without real employment improvement. The conditions for effectiveness include: clear definitions and monitoring requirements, meaningful sanctions that create incentives for genuine compliance rather than paper compliance, and complementary policies (vocational rehabilitation, supported employment programmes, assistive technology provision) that make employing persons with disabilities practically feasible for employers without existing experience in accommodation.
GILS Position: The employment gap for persons with disabilities at 32 percentage points represents one of the most severe labour market exclusions in Georgia and the most underreported. GILS recommends that the Ministry of Labour develop a comprehensive implementation framework for the quota provision — including clear definitions, employer reporting obligations, an inspection protocol, and a graduated sanction regime — within the 2025–2026 legislative calendar. The framework should be developed in consultation with disabled persons’ organisations, which are currently not represented in the social dialogue architecture.
Read the full GILS analysis: https://labour.edu.ge/law-disability-rights/