The fourth annual Career Day for Disabled People, which took place at Sofia's Radisson SAS Hotel on October 8 2008, proved to be a good opportunity for more than a hundred job seekers with disabilities and about 20 employers to meet and match the professional skills they bring to the Bulgarian labour market to specific job profiles. The goal is to increase employment of people with disabilities in both the private and public sectors.

Next to the local job agencies booths', companies such as Crown Agents, AmRest, WorleyParsons, ClearWare, McDonalds and IBM presented themselves and accepted personal CVs. Most of these companies have no disabled employees at present but have expressed interest in hiring disabled people. McDonalds, who have been hiring people with hearing disabilities since 2004, are one exception.

Outside of the public sector, 600 disabled people are employed in the state administration and labour offices across the country at present, Social Policy and Labour Minister Emilia Maslarova, who opened the event, said. She pleaded for improved educational opportunities for disabled people and said that she believed that still more will find employment in the social sector. The State Administration Ministry plans to hire several hundred disabled people by the end of they year.

Only 10 to 15 percent of the disabled people in Bulgaria are employed. Integration into the job market will unfold once city and state offices architecture accommodates the transport needs of these people, the executive director of the Agency for Disabled People, which is part of the Labour Ministry, Mincho Koralski said. About three million leva from the budget surplus have been earmarked for infrastructure modifications.

The Career Day for Disabled People was part of the joint project of a number of Government and non-governmental organisations, including the Labour and Social Policy Ministry, the Bulgarian Association for Personal Alternative (BAPA) and the bTV show Sblusuk. Together, they aim at raising awareness about and accommodating the needs of disabled job seekers.