The Australian government on Monday launched a 1.2-billion-Australian dollar (US$1.08 billion) program to help people with disabilities get into the workforce.

The program will boost access to employment services and provide long-term support for people with disabilities already in work.

Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities Bill Shorten said people with disabilities are under-represented in the workforce.

"We need to ensure that we remove the barriers facing people with disability who want to work, and recognize their potential rather than their impairments," he said in a statement.

The employment rate for people with disabilities is about 30 percent less than the rest of the population.

And there are now more than 750,000 Disability Support Pensioners (DSP) in Australia.

The peak disability employment services group, the Association of Competitive Employment (ACE) revealed many DSP recipients want to work.

"Yet they have been deterred from doing so in recent years due to long queues for assistance, red tape and inappropriate service models," ACE Chief Executive Officer Lucy Macali said in a statement.

"This program is set to lift workforce participation rates for jobseekers with disability in a very real way."

(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2010)