Between January 1 and 31, 2022, companies with 100 or more workers must report electronically on the portal of the Labor Bureau, compliance with Law No. 21.015 on Labor Inclusion for the year 2022.

The Labor Inclusion Law, in force since April 1, 2018, obliges companies with 100 or more workers, to hire or keep hired at least 1% of people with disabilities or who are assignees of a disability pension, of any pension system, in relation to the total number of their workers. This obligation applies only in the months in which the companies actually have 100 or more workers, so that this obligation is not enforceable in the months in which the number of workers hired is less than 100.

Information that must be registered electronically with the DT.

Companies with 100 or more workers must report the number of workers with disabilities or disability pension recipients to be hired in 2022, based on 1% of the average number of workers in the previous year, i.e. 2021. The information that must be registered with the DT is as follows:

· Number of employees as of the last day of each month in 2021.
· Average number of workers for the year 2021.
· 1% of the average number of workers for the year 2021. This will be the number of workers to hire or keep hired in the year 2022, in those months in which the company has 100 or more workers.

This information must be recorded no later than January 31, 2022.

Thus, the affected companies must add up the number of workers hired as of the last day of each month of 2021, divide such total sum by 12 and calculate 1% to that result, which will be, in short, the number of workers with disabilities or disability pension recipients that must be hired during 2022.

Since companies can hire workers until the last day of the month and, therefore, have no certainty in advance of the number of dependents they will have during that month, the obligation to hire workers with disabilities will apply from the first day of the month following the month in which the company had 100 or more workers.

Subsidiary measures to comply with the Inclusion Law.

During its first two years of effectiveness, the law did not require companies that did not hire disabled people directly to comply with this law, but they could comply with this law in an alternative way, by entering into service provision contracts with companies that did hire people with disabilities or disability pension beneficiaries, or by donating money -until December 31 of each year- to projects or programs of associations, corporations or foundations that provide services to people with disabilities.

As of April 2, 2020, this subsidiary compliance is only possible in the event of any of the conditions established by law, which must be duly justified or justified by the employer:

· The nature of the functions performed by the company does not allow the hiring of persons with disabilities; or
· The lack of people interested in the job offers that have been made.

Regarding the argument of the nature of the company’s functions, it will be the body administering the mandatory insurance of Law No. 16.744 to which each company is affiliated or companies with delegated administration, which will qualify whether such functions cannot be performed by persons with disabilities. This, without prejudice to the participation of the company’s risk prevention department.

In the absence of either of the two reasons described above, companies can only comply with the law by directly hiring workers with disabilities or disability pension recipients.

Should you require additional information on this matter, please contact: Alfred Sherman (asherman@jdf.cl), Gonzalo Aravena (garavena@jdf.cl), and/or Felipe Ovalle (fovalle@jdf.cl).