Is the statutory employment rate for people with disabilities—2.7% starting from July 2026—high or low?

 My late father had a physical disability. In his prime, in his 40s, he began experiencing health problems and eventually ended up in a wheelchair. As a child, I couldn’t comprehend the profound life transition that occurs when someone who was once able-bodied becomes disabled. But now, I often wonder what was going through his mind during that time. In any case, he continued working until retirement and supported our family. While people with disabilities are often regarded as “weak” in society, at home he was a stubborn and intimidating father—someone none of us dared to defy. Because of that, I’ve never strongly associated disability with weakness.

Starting in fiscal year 2026, the legally mandated employment rate for people with disabilities in private companies in Japan will rise to 2.7%. This statutory employment rate began increasing rapidly in the 2010s, when Japan’s labor shortage became more pronounced: 2.0% (2013–2017) → 2.2% (2018–2020) → 2.3% (2021–2023) → 2.5% (2024–2025) → 2.7% (from July 2026).

In response to this target, the actual employment rate of people with disabilities in private companies in 2024 was 2.41%. While it hasn’t quite reached the target yet, it’s getting close. It’s worth noting that the actual employment rate is an adjusted figure—for example, part-time workers are counted as 0.5 persons, while people with severe intellectual disabilities count as two persons.

So, is this legal employment rate or the actual employment rate high or low?
To explore this, I looked into the proportion of people with disabilities in Japan’s labor force (which includes both employed and unemployed people aged 15 and older).

According to the Statistics Bureau of Japan, the total labor force population in 2024 was 69.57 million. There’s no direct data showing how many of these individuals have disabilities, but according to the 2024 White Paper on Persons with Disabilities, the number of people with disabilities aged 18–65 is approximately 1,894,900. This includes 1,013,000 with physical disabilities, 580,000 with intellectual disabilities, and 301,900 with mental disabilities (for the latter, only data for ages 25–64 is available; see charts below).

Not all people with disabilities in this age group are working or able to work, but if we include all of them in the labor force for estimation purposes, they make up about 2.7% of Japan’s labor force—exactly matching the new statutory employment rate starting next year. In that sense, the target doesn’t seem too high or too low—it appears to be just about right.

However, if we look specifically at people with physical disabilities—the largest group in both absolute numbers and employment figures—the number of individuals aged 18–65 is declining due to an aging population. This presents a challenge for HR departments, as meeting the employment quota increasingly requires hiring more people with intellectual and mental disabilities.

The employment of people with physical disabilities has a long history—it became mandatory in 1976—but for people with intellectual disabilities, it began in 1998, and for those with mental disabilities, in 2008. Many companies still may not have adequate systems in place to support the latter two groups. In that sense, Japan’s disability employment system is entering a new stage.

People with disabilities have families, friends, colleagues, and personal values or a sense of purpose in their work, just like anyone else. However, some companies tend to assign them separate jobs that are somewhat detached from other employees, which can lead to minimal interaction. Sometimes, they are even treated like guests.

But as the legal employment rate continues to rise and opportunities for contact with non-disabled employees increase, I believe we will begin to see—and help them see—the strengths that people with disabilities possess. Career counselors have a responsibility to support that process of realization.