By Lillian Radulova
It’s not just the residents in aged care who are ageing at an increasing rate; new data suggests it’s the aged care workforce too.
The recently released Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report shows the residential aged care workforce is ageing at a greater rate than any other industry group in the community services sector, with 58 per cent of aged care workers aged 45 years and over compared with 38 per cent of workers in all other industries.
“Between 2000-01 and 2010-11, there was substantial ageing of workers in the residential care services industry,” the ABS’ Australian Social Trends, September 2011 reports states.
“Notably, the proportion of workers aged 55 years and over increased considerably over the decade, more than doubling their share from 11 per cent in 2000-01 to 27 per cent in 2010-11. During this same period, there was a substantial decline in the proportion of workers aged 25-34 years and 35-44 years.”
Aged and Community Care Victoria (ACCV) CEO, Gerard Mansour, said that these figures identify the need for government support in order to make the industry more appealing to younger generations.
“We all know how important workforce issues are – the release of the data was a strong reminder that our workforce challenges have not gone away,” Mr Mansour said.
“Workforce is the number one long term issue for our industry. We need to make the industry sexy – or more attractive – and appealing to young workers…We must continue to attract a vibrant and young workforce to support the sustainability of the industry into the long-term.”
But current annual government funding only covers half the sector’s annual cost increases, Mr Mansour said, and with the sectors’ biggest expenditure being staff wages, there has consequently been a decline in services.
“This year, government provided an annual funding adjustment of only 1.9 per cent – half the real cost increases faced by the industry.
“The last decade has seen a decline in services provided to our older Australians in their own home of up to 20 per cent. That’s a reduction from an average of around seven hours to just over five per week on average.”
Mr Mansour stressed the need to tackle the workforce issue, given the rapid ageing of the population and the increasing number of older people who will require aged care in the near future.
“By 2020 we will need 82,000 new aged care beds and more community care to cope with our burgeoning population and rapidly increasing demand.”
