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Work and disability

In professional life, it can have advantages if you belong to the group of beneficiary disabled people as a person with disabilities. For example, you can receive special support, have special protection against dismissal and possibly also get more vacation if this is stated in your employment contract, collective agreement or company agreements.  

If you have a disability, you can submit an application to the Ministry of Social Affairs . If the degree of your disability is at least 50 percent, you will be granted beneficiary status. Your degree of disability is determined by medical experts from the Ministry of Social Affairs.

IMPORTANT: In order to obtain the beneficiary status permanently, you must apply for a declaratory decision. A mere application for the issuance of the disability pass is not sufficient.

If, after an accident at work or an occupational disease, a social security institution or a court determines a restriction of earning capacity of at least 50 percent, you are also entitled to beneficiary status. 

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Yes, you have increased protection against dismissal. This means that your employer must obtain the approval of the Disability Committee before terminating. This committee is set up at the respective state office of the Ministry of Social Affairs Services and can give this consent in special exceptional cases. In the event of approval, however, the termination can only be issued by your employer after the legally binding conclusion of the termination procedure.  

A dismissal without prior consent is legally invalid if the Disability Committee does not give its consent retrospectively in exceptional cases. 

ATTENTION: An exceptional case that justifies subsequent consent is given if your employer did not know or could not have known at the time of the notice of termination that you belonged to the group of disabled people who benefited.

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Your protection against dismissal only applies after a certain duration of the employment relationship.

  • If you already had beneficiary status at the start of the employment relationship , your protection against dismissal only applies after the expiry of 4 years (calculated from the beginning of your employment relationship).
  • The situation is different for people who only have their beneficiary status determined within the four-year period: In this case, protection against dismissal takes effect immediately or on the date specified in the assessment notice, but no earlier than 6 months after the start of the employment relationship. It makes no difference whether the disability already existed at the time of the commencement of the employment relationship or only occurred subsequently.
  • If someone receives beneficiary status as a result of an accident at work , then the special protection against dismissal applies immediately , regardless of the duration of the employment relationship. 

NOTE: If you submit an application for beneficiary status at the latest on the day of the notice of termination and this is awarded to you by the Ministry of Social Affairs Service retroactively on this day, the termination is legally invalid and the employer must first initiate an approval procedure. As a rule, the Ministry of Social Affairs can only grant beneficiary status retroactively until the application is submitted. The time of receipt of the application by the Ministry of Social Affairs Service counts. If you have not yet submitted an application by the day of the notice of termination, you must therefore submit this application on the same day on which you were served with the notice of termination or declared orally. Since the receipt of the application counts here, a postal application will not be sufficient in this particular case and you must submit the application online on the website of the Ministry of Social Affairs Service or submit it there in person.

IMPORTANT: In the event of termination of the employment relationship by mutual agreement, the end of a fixed-term employment relationship due to the expiry of time or in the event of justified dismissal without notice , the special protection against dismissal does not apply. 

EXCEPTION: In the case of beneficiary disabled employees who are members of the works council or the youth council or who work as a disability representative , the dismissal protection provisions of the Labour Constitution Act apply.

Employers who employ 25 or more employees in Austria are obliged to hire at least one beneficiary disabled person for every 25 employees. The number of beneficiary disabled people who have to be hired is called the compulsory number .

If employers do not fulfil their obligation to employ, a compensatory tax must be paid for each unfilled mandatory position (as of 2024):

  • For employers employing up to 24 employees : no compensatory tax
  • For employers employing 25 to 99 employees : € 320 per month per unfilled mandatory position
  • For employers who employ 100 or more employees : € 451 per month per unfilled compulsory position
  • For employers who employ 400 or more employees : € 477 per month per unfilled mandatory position

These amounts of money are adjusted annually by decree of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Disability representatives (BVP) are elected employee representatives. They advocate for the economic, social, health and cultural interests of beneficiary disabled colleagues and chronically ill employees in a company. To this end, they also work closely with the works council . 

In every company in which at least five beneficiary disabled employees are permanently employed, a disability representative and one or more deputies must be elected by them. The number of deputies depends on how many beneficiary disabled employees are employed in the company.

Get in touch with us!

Would you like to learn more about working with disabilities, exchange ideas or get actively involved? We are here for you. 

vida Department of People with Disabilities

Johann-Böhm-Platz 1 1020 Wien
+43 1 53444 79 596

More information about our work:

People with disabilities
Crime Scene Workplace