A/HRC/22/25 33. The reluctance of employers to recruit persons with disabilities can often originate in a fear of having to make expensive workplace adjustments. There is a general misconception that all persons with disabilities will need reasonable accommodation or that accommodations will be too costly or difficult to provide. However, many persons with disabilities do not need reasonable accommodation and many accommodations can be provided at little or no cost.16 Finally, even where required, only accommodation which is reasonable, necessary, appropriate and which does not impose disproportionate or undue burden is mandated. With a view to correcting misconceptions, States have the responsibility to inform employers of their duties to provide reasonable accommodation, to raise awareness on the concept among employers, trade unions and persons with disabilities, and to provide technical assistance on how to transform the provision into practice. 34. The determination of what constitutes “appropriate measures” is essential for the effective implementation of the duty to provide reasonable accommodation. It can be argued that measures are appropriate if they facilitate access to and participation in working life, job advancement and training on an equal footing with others for a person with disabilities requesting them. The identification of appropriate measures must be made on the basis of an individual assessment of the specific job, the needs of the person with a disability and a realistic assessment of what the employer is capable of providing. 17 This process should be interactive and participatory to be effective, and all information related to the reasonable accommodation request should be handled with confidentiality. E. Positive measures to promote employment of persons with disabilities 35. Besides having a duty to impose obligations on private-sector employers, States have an obligation to take positive measures to increase employment of persons with disabilities in the private sector. The Convention establishes that States parties shall undertake measures to employ persons with disabilities in the public sector, and to promote the employment of persons with disabilities in the private sector through appropriate policies and measures, which may include affirmative action programmes, incentives and other measures (art. 27, para. 1(h), also (e), (i) and (k)). 36. Submissions to this study show that the most common employment promotion scheme tends to be the use of quotas. Most countries have legislation on the percentage of positions in the public-sector for persons with disabilities, and some also have quotas for the private sector. Mauritius, for instance, has introduced legislation requiring public- and private-sector employers with more than a certain number of staff, to employ a defined percentage of persons with disabilities, and provides for sanctions for non-compliance. 37. Existing quota systems can be divided into two main categories: strict quotas and flexible quotas.18 Strict quotas refer to schemes in which a person with a disability is treated preferentially irrespective of whether he or she is as qualified as other applicants. With 16 17 18 10 Research by the United States Department of Labor, Office of Disability Employment Policy found that 56 per cent of employers who gave information related to the cost of accommodations said that the accommodations needed by their employees were completely free of cost. See Job Accommodation Network, “Workplace Accommodations: Low Cost, High Impact,” Accommodation and Compliance Series, Updated 09/01/11. MariaVentegodt Liisberg, Disability and Employment: A contemporary disability human rights approach applied to Danish, Swedish and EU law and policy (Intersentia, 2011). Olivier de Schutter, ”Positive Action,” in D. Schiek, L. Waddington and M. Bell, Cases, Materials and Text on National, Supranational and International Non-Discrimination Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2007), chap. 7.