Retailers could soon be forced to disclose disability pay

UK listed businesses may soon have to expand their diversity reporting to include disability pay.

While the gender pay gap is officially addressed by many companies now that regulations requires the information to be disclosed, the same could soon hold for disability pay gaps.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show a pay gap of 13.8 percent between disabled and non-disabled salaries.

An article in the Raconteur cited the UK counts over 14.6 million disabled persons, of which approximately 30 percent are in paid employment.

It is not just the differently-abled workforce that is facing issues. Elsewhere seven out of every 10 disabled consumers faced one or more delivery problems in the past year, a joint survey between Which? and the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers has revealed.

The survey of 704 disabled consumers found that half of those with a delivery issue said the courier did not wait long enough for them to answer the door.

The UK government under current plans aims to get 1 million disabled people back into work by 2027.

Fashion businesses and retailers lack transparency to fully assess how many disabled persons are in employment. In a 2021 report titled Diversity and Inclusion in UK Retail, jointly published by PWC and the British Retail Consortium, only 7 percent of the 200 retailers surveyed reported having at least one physically disabled person within the top two levels of executive leaders. One third of those surveyed were retailers in the fashion sector.

Article sources: Raconteur, Drapers