On the 2nd of December around 30 organizations participated in the job fair. The job offers were mainly in the spheres of service, banks, hotels, insurance companies. The aim of the job fair was to create favorable conditions for the employers and future employees. The organizations taking part in the fair were America Bank, ArmNews, Central Bank of Armenia, Deem Communications, etc (the full list is here). Besides job offers, there were offers for internships and study programs abroad.

Before the beginning of the fair, a conference was held, during which the peculiarities and possibilities of the job market in Armenia was presented. The job fair was organized by the “US Alumni of Armenia” Association and IREX office in Armenia with the support of US Embassy and US Council in Armenia.

www.hra.am tried to find out whether the organizations participating in the job fair were ready to hire people with physical disabilities and whether their workplace meets the needs of these people.

All the organizations that were questioned said that although they do not have the appropriate building conditions, still they have no discrimination and for the offered positions they are ready to consider the candidacy of people with physical disabilities as well.

“We are guided by “Discrimination in no case” principle, therefore the candidacy of people with physical disabilities are as well taken into consideration for vacancies. However, there are limited positions where they can be involved. Still lots of things depend on the type of disability. We exclude discrimination and we had candidates with physical disabilities, but the reason for not accepting them was not their disability”, said the Head of the Department of Personnel Management of the Pro-Credit Bank Mariam Hambardzumyan.

The representative of “Deem Communications” also mentioned that there is no discrimination in their organization, “simply the nature of our jobs is that one should move around all the time and for people with problems of movement our jobs won’t be appropriate”.

IREX office in Armenia was offering educational opportunities for everyone: “We do not hamper the people with physical disabilities, we even encourage them to apply to our programs”, said the assistant to the educational projects of IREX office in Armenia Ariadna Grigoryan.

From the state bodies RA Ministry of Youth and Sport Affairs was present at the event which even though was not offering particular jobs for people with physical disabilities, it planned the inclusion of people with physical disabilities in the projects of the Ministry. “Next year the priority program is the involvement of people with physical disabilities in sport events, so that they also have the possibility to participate in contests and win prizes”, said the Head of the Personnel Management Department of the Ministry Rashid Galstyan.

The organizers of the fair mentioned that the number of the visitors were three times more than expected, however we didn’t meet any person with physical disabilities during the event.

Sofia Manukyan

Source: www.hra.am