Today, during the global economic insecurity, the fight against poverty and social exclusion is an essential precondition for enabling the welfare of all parts of society, by reducing economic disparities and social polarization to a minimum, while achieving economic growth and job creation. Creation of new jobs and employment, is one of the harder attainable, but one of the most important preconditions for starting economic development. To persons with disabilities, as one of the most vulnerable and less employable group, which is thus more exposed to the dangers of entering into poverty, employment is particularly important as a way of social inclusion in society, and self-realization. Although, in the last few years, Croatia made a big step forward when it comes to people with disabilities and their rights and possibilities, a long way is still ahead of us. Therefore, through the work of this year’s conference and topics that will be processed through lectures we want to encourage discussion of all the institutions that deal with people with disabilities, civil society, people with disabilities themselves and to identify problems and offer models of their solutions. In that way, this conference will contribute to creating new and better opportunities for persons with disabilities and their better inclusion, not only in the labor market, but also in all parts of society.
The aim of conference is a comprehensive view of the challenges in the field of vocational rehabilitation, work and employment of persons with disabilities in the European labor market, as well as the status of persons with disabilities in the labor market in Croatia after the implementation of a new model of vocational rehabilitation.