Sheltered employment

Sheltered employment is a programme for people with limited ability to work. The programme is a cross between a social initiative and employment. The purpose of this report is to create better understanding of sheltered employment.
Sheltered employment often takes place in sheltered workshops, but also in regular workplaces. The report covers the scope of the programme, the composition of users, the number of workshops and the sizes of workshops. Furthermore, it looks at whether the workshops attempt to guide their users in the direction of ordinary or supported employment at a regular workplace.
The analysis shows that only one in six municipalities aims at getting users employed at a regular workplace. It also shows that the programme is used more by people with mental disorders and less by people with physical disabilities. The analysis is based on questionnaire surveys of staff and clients at sheltered workshops, as well as the municipalities to which the workshops belong. The analysis is also based on information from the Social Services Portal (Tilbudsportalen – a website to profile various social-service programmes) and, to a limited extent, tables produced by Statistics Denmark.
The evaluation was commissioned by the Ministry of Social Welfare and funded by the National Labour Market Authority.