India’s formal workforce expanded sharply between April and July 2025, with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation adding 69.03 lakh net members, even as women continued to hold a small share of flexible-work roles. A report by staffing firm Quess Corp shows women make up just 25% of India’s flexi workforce, against a national labour force participation average of about 34.3%.
The report puts the female labour force participation rate at 33.7%. Within Quess Corp’s own workforce, the gap is even wider, with women accounting for only 17%, or roughly 82,000 workers, below both the flexi-workforce average of 25% and the national figure of about 34%.
The company framed the shortfall as embedded in the labour market’s structure rather than in hiring alone. “The gender gap mirrors India’s broader structural challenge; women remain underrepresented in sales, logistics, and frontline operational roles,” the report stated.
Sector-level data points to how uneven that participation is. Women form 32% of the workforce in IT and ITeS, 20% in FMCG, 18% in retail and 17% in logistics, but only 9% in telecom, 6% in agriculture and 5% in public enterprises. Among Quess Corp’s female employees, 35% are aged 21 to 25 and 27% are aged 25 to 30, signalling a young and early-career profile. The firm also reported generating around 26,000 new Universal Account Numbers in the first half of FY26, formalising workers who were previously outside the organised system.
The findings arrive alongside government payroll data showing consistent monthly additions to EPFO through 2025, driven largely by workers aged 18 to 25. The persistent gap between rising formal employment and low female representation remains a live policy question as India works toward its stated goal of higher women’s workforce participation.
