PETALING JAYA: In conjunction with the upcoming Labour Day on Saturday (May 1), the National Council for the Blind Malaysia has called on the government to step up its efforts to improve employment opportunities for the disabled. Noting there were previous efforts to achieve this, the council said more has to be done as there has been no substantial progress since the late 1980s. The council quoted news reports that only 0.35% of employees in the civil service are made up of “persons with disabilities”, which highlighted the lack of success in achieving the government's targeted 1% quota of public sector placement. “Moreover, we have yet to have reliable statistics of employees with disabilities in the private sector.