A set of studies analyses legal and procedural gaps preventing people with disabilities and representatives of ethnic minorities from getting jobs and building careers in the public sector.

Key findings:

• One of the main barriers for Armenian- and Azerbaijani-speaking people in seeking public employment is insufficient knowledge of the Georgian language.
• In municipalities with a high concentration of ethnic minorities, the representation of women in the civil service is lower than the national average and does not exceed 33 percent.
• 1+4 internship program is an important mechanism for increasing the engagement of young people from ethnic minority groups in civil service.
• In the municipalities densely populated by ethnic minorities, there are certain practices for collecting data on civil servants’ ethnicity. However, this data is not consolidated at the national level in the Civil Service Bureau. The methodology used by individual municipalities is inconsistent and, in many cases, does not meet the principles of self-identification and anonymity stipulated in international standards.
• The employment of people with disabilities in public service is largely hindered by reasons generally considered the main barriers to employment of people with disabilities: competition in the job market and limited resources for people with disabilities, unadapted infrastructure, and stereotypes.
• Public service is even less accessible to people with disabilities due to high demands - in most cases, higher education is required, which is relatively rare amongpeople with disabilities.

Two specific studies examine staffing and recruitment policies in the civil service. One of these researches focuses on women, people with disabilities and representatives of ethnic minorities, while the other analyses the inclusiveness and accessibility of HR.GOV.GE, the main recruitment resource of the civil service.

The researches were carried out by the Civil Service Bureau in partnership with local experts and civil society organizations – the PMC Research and the Disability Research Centre (DRC) of Tbilisi State University with assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UK aid from the UK Government.