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Making aged care an attractive place to work, boosting job security and utilising overseas recruitment were key issues flagged at a pre-summit industry roundtable held last week.
Aged care providers, advocates, experts and health unions met with federal aged care minister Anika Wells for talks ahead of September’s job and skills summit.
The meeting came after a national survey revealed that nearly half of the aged care workforce planned to quit within the next five years.
Reflecting on the three-hour discussion, Wells said that the federal government needed to bring “ambition” into the industry.
“Aged care reform needs to be done once and done well, and that’s why consultations like today’s aged care workforce pre-jobs summit roundtable are crucial,” Wells said.
“We must work together to improve the lives of aged care workers and care recipients who have been neglected after successive liberal governments ignored their plight.”
Since May’s election, Labor has committed to a number of major reforms to the aged care sector.
This includes introducing legislation for a revamped funding model, promising 24/7 nurses in residential care homes, and mandating a minimum of 200 care minutes per resident each day.
Catholic Health Australia (CHA), which represents around 12 per cent of providers, said the government needed to “move fast” to fill the nearly 50,000 vacant jobs in the industry.
“The roundtable highlighted many areas of consensus. Better remuneration and conditions for the workforce, with better career pathways, was agreed by all parties,” said CHA chief Pat Garcia.
“The sector was also vocal on removing barriers for bringing workers into Australia, with clear pathways to permanent residency, to fill critical gaps.”
According to a recent Committee for Economic Development of Australia report, Australia needs to find an extra 35,000 aged care workers per year to fill growing skills shortages.
Last month, federal home affairs minister Clare O'Neil said the government would prioritise the processing of 60,000 permanent visa applications by overseas skilled workers to fill urgently needed jobs, including in health and aged care.
This came as the government expanded the Pacific Australian Labor Mobility Scheme (PALM) to bring more Pacific aged care workers into the country.
ANMF federal secretary Annie Butler recently told the ABC that immigration would not be a "silver bullet" to solve the issue.
"It's certainly not going to address the current critical workforce shortages that we have, but it could bring some positive benefits," she said.
"At this stage, it's not going to be large numbers and we're obviously going to need more than just a reliance on the PALM scheme to address all of our workforce shortages."
The government's jobs and skills summit will be held at Parliament House in Canberra on 1‑2 September.
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I wonder where all of these migrant workers are meant to live, considering the current housing crisis? Can’t see how you can bring 60,000 workers to Australia when many current citizens have no where to live. Housing needs to be addressed in conjunction with workforce.