Less than 1% of corporate India’s workforce comprises Persons with Disabilities: Report

Persons with disabilities make up less than 1% of the workforce in corporate India, a recent study has found.

This finding, and others, have been revealed in the report, The Marching Sheep PwD Inclusion Index 2025: Building Disability Confident Organisations.

The report by HR and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consulting company Marching Sheep is based on a survey of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) employed at  876 listed organisations across 59 different sectors.

It provides a comprehensive, evidence-backed view of where India stands today and the steps needed to build truly inclusive workplaces for people with disabilities.

While disability inclusion has seen years of dialogue, advocacy, and policy reform, participation of PwDs in corporate India remains strikingly low. The Index reveals that employees with disabilities make up less than 1% of the corporate workforce, and 37.9% of surveyed companies reported having no permanently employed persons with disabilities.

Other findings of the report include:

• There has been an increase of 4.1% from last year in organisations employing at least one disabled person. 
• Data shows that many organisations are experiencing a gap between intention to hire disabled individuals and actual implementation of those intentions, as 39% of organisations surveyed have reported less disabled representation from last year. 
• Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) employ 72% of all Persons with Disabilities in India, and the private sector still lags behind. Growth rates in hiring in the private sector, however, were higher than in PSUs. 
• Many PwDs (73%) believe they do not get paid equally for equal work, and 68% think their workplaces are not accessible enough.
• Invisible disabilities continue to be insufficiently addressed in hiring, as structural and attitudinal barriers limit their representation in the workplace.

"The less than one per cent representation of PwD in our workforce, combined with the widening entry trust gap and limited career pathways available to those who qualify, indicates that mere benevolence is insufficient toward building true inclusion for PwD in the workforce,” Sonica Aron, Founder and CEO, Marching Sheep

“To be inclusive in our workforce development, we need to shift from thinking of disability through the lens of charity, to viewing disability as an integral part of developing talent and capability within our teams and workforce,” she added.