That national and local government organizations have been inflating the number of people on their payrolls with disabilities — to meet legally mandated quotas by "arbitrarily interpreting" the guideline on hiring such people under the law to promote employment of disabled workers — is simply inexcusable. An investigative panel probing the malpractice said it could find no evidence that the organizations intentionally cheated to get around the requirements, but the way they padded their numbers indicate that the government bodies — which are supposed to set the example for increasing employment of people with disabilities — lacked any awareness of what the law aims to achieve.

The law for promoting employment of people with disabilities, which dates back to 1960 in its original form, requires employers in both the public and private sectors to hire people with physical, intellectual or mental disabilities to account for a certain portion of their workforce — with the mandatory ratio raised to 2.5 percent for government organizations and 2.2 percent for private sector companies since April. Companies that fail to meet the mandatory ratio will be fined, while no such penalties are imposed on public sector bodies. The law aims to create a society that ensures work opportunities for everyone irrespective of disabilities.

The government earlier said its ministries and agencies employed roughly 6,800 people with disabilities, or nearly 2.5 percent of the total. Then in August, it turned out that about half of these workers did not meet the labor ministry guideline on people to be covered by the program, such as possessing a disability certificate or relevant medical diagnosis. A report released last week by a third-party panel commissioned to probe the matter said 28 of the 33 central government organizations "inappropriately" included around 3,700 people in their head counts of workers with disabilities. Similarly, local governments across the country incorrectly listed some 3,800 workers as having disabilities.