A shirker for a coworker

Is it demotivating to have a shirker in your team? If a company neither appreciates a work of merit neither condemns a shirker, is it in peril? There are always inspiring people and there are not so role models.
While talking about this at a  get together, a mention od Gallup study of the percentage of disengaged employees in the US workforce got me to Disengaged employees cost millions