A government scheme to integrate long-term welfare claimants and people with mental and physical disabilities into the regular workforce has largely failed, according to the socio-cultural think-tank SCP.

There has been little change in the number of welfare claimants finding work since the project began in 2015 and people who used to work via sheltered employment schemes now find it much harder to get a job at all, the SCP said.

And while more youngsters with some form of disability are finding work, they earn less than they did before the Participatiewet came into effect and are more likely to have a part-time job, the research shows.

Since January 2015, the government has been phasing out sheltered employment schemes on the basis of an agreement with private and public sector employers to replace them with regular jobs.

While three in five employers said they were prepared to take on people from either target group, just one in five have actually done so, the SCP said.