Long-Term Care Workers Have It Tough
A new study by the University of California at San Francisco paints a fairly bleak picture of one of the healthcare sector's fastest-growing workforces: Long-term care employees.
According to the study, the long-term care (LTC) sector – which includes home healthcare agencies, skilled nursing care facilities, residential care facilities and private board and cares – are staffed by workers who tend to be undereducated, low-paid and unlikely to stay in their jobs for extended periods.
Low wages persist despite the fact that job growth in LTC is booming, with a nearly 24% expansion projected for nursing home jobs and nearly 60% for home healthcare jobs by 2022. However, none of the jobs paid on average more than $40,000 annually in the years between 2003 and 2013, and most paid well below $30,000.
And despite the fact that demand for such services are growing as Americans age, exits from the sector are currently outpacing new entrants by 6% to 10% over the past decade, depending on the kind of work being performed. And LTC newcomers, “are increasingly younger, low skilled, and low income with no clear career ladder or evidence of job mobility,” according to the report. Their prospects in other lines of work did not appear to be promising – those who left the long-term care sector suffered unemployment rates double to triple the nationwide average. A large percentage also eventually claimed a workforce disability.
“This is especially concerning, as most people who left the LTC workforce – particularly those with lower skill levels – found themselves unemployed or out of the labor force entirely, and they also reported higher rates of work disability and poverty,” said Bianca Frogner of the University of Washington School of Medicine, the study's co-author.
The study concluded that “employers, educators, and policymakers should consider investments in education and training. Well-crafted training programs not only can improve the job skills of direct-care workers but also reduce occupational injury rates and job turnover.”
