Workers are feeling unsupported, frustrated, burnt out and sick of surviving a poor culture, the latest Aged Care Workforce Survey shows.
Those hoping to fix the aged care workforce crisis by simply increasing pay rates may have to think again if the latest Aged Care Workforce Survey results are indicative.
While a solid 64.6% of respondents said they were not looking for work outside their main job in aged care, those who were listed a concerning catalogue of reasons to leave, with pay rates only the sixth-most cited reason.
Top of the pile was a lack of workplace support, cited by 45.7% as their main reason for wanting to leave the sector.
A poor workplace culture or conflict in the workplace was cited by 41.1%, frustration at work was third (38.3%), no longer enjoying working for a particular provider was fourth (33.7%), and feeling burnt out was fifth (32.6%).
Just 31.7% felt the pay was too low.
The survey, published by the Department of Health and Aged Care late last month, targeted registered nurses, enrolled nurses, nurse practitioners, home and personal care workers and allied health professionals working in aged care between 18 March and 30 April this year.
A total of 21,197 took part, with 8574 completing the survey, 7945 partially completing it and 4778 employed in a group that was not targeted by the survey (ancillary care workers, diversional therapists, volunteers and pastoral/spiritual care workers).
In general key findings:
- respondents were mainly female (87.4%) and born in Australia (56.6%);
- 2.5% of respondents identified as being Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander;
- most respondents were personal / home care workers and assistants (71.6%), followed by nurses (22.8%) and allied health professionals (5.6%);
- most respondents worked permanent part-time (58.7%), followed by casual (20.8%) and permanent full-time (18.0%);
- the average age of respondents was 47 years;
- around four in 10 worked in a major city (44.8%) and spoke a language other than English (40.8%);
- respondents chose to work in aged care to make a positive change in the lives of older people.
Hours worked
Most respondents worked an average of 26.4 paid hours and an average of 6.5 hours of unpaid work.
Of those who worked unpaid hours, most said it was because they had “too much work to do” or “there was no one else to do the work”.
Over a quarter (27.5%) said they wanted to work more hours, with most wanting another 18 hours on average. Of those, 87.6% wanted the extra work to increase their income.
Job satisfaction
Almost two-thirds of respondents (64.7%) said they were satisfied working in aged care, with their job security (68.4%), and with the level of support they got from the people they worked with directly (71.4%).
However, 40.3% were dissatisfied with their total pay. The average hourly rate of pay was $36.61. Nursing assistants had the lowest pay in the sector, with an average of $31.47, while personal care workers earned $32.04 per hour on average.
Nurse practitioners were the best paid, with an average hourly rate of $64.12, and clinical care managers ($59.61 per hour).
Attraction and retention
The survey found that most respondents wanted to keep working in the aged care sector (64.6%). Just under half of respondents had worked in the aged care sector for more than 10 years (42.8%).
Training and qualifications
The survey found that:
- the most common work-related training completed by respondents was infection prevention and control training (68.9%), followed by dementia care training (56.0%);
- the most common completed qualification was a Certificate III in Individual Support (Ageing) (30.5%), followed by a Certificate III in Aged Care (27.8%) and a Bachelor of Nursing (15.0%);
- 4.6% of respondents had not completed an educational qualification.
The full survey report can be found here.