People on sick leave and people on disability pensions

This report examines the views of selected job centre employees on the employment efforts aimed at recipients of sickness benefits and disability pensions. The report is based on qualitative interviews with employees and representatives of the management at three job centres. A total of 12 people were interviewed.
Interviews with the employees provide insight into the challenges as well as the potential associated with efforts aimed, in particular, at getting more recipients of sickness benefits and disability pensions into employment. Furthermore, the employees provide suggestions as to what can be done to increase the employment rate for these people in future.
The study shows e.g. that the employees feel pressed for time on a daily basis, and that they feel that efforts at the job centre are increasingly being prioritised and measured against timeliness and whether or not the municipality can get reimbursement from the state. According to the employees interviewed, this means that efforts aimed at, for example, people on disability pensions are given less priority than efforts allocated to sickness benefits cases. They also point out that this could result in less quality and lower levels of professionalism.
The study was funded by Disabled Peoples Organisations Denmark and is a part of a larger study launched by Vidensnetværket, a knowledge network aimed at collecting and disseminating knowledge about disabilities and employment among players in the employment area.