Shortage of Home Care Aides

I just read a good article in the Omaha World Herald titled A growing need but low wages, few perks for home-care aides.

The article suggests the "country will need hundreds of thousands more home-care aides if it's going to keep today's elderly, followed by their far more numerous baby boomer children, out of institutions".

Home care aides occupy a category that the Bureau of Labor Statistics  (BLS) calls "personal and home-care aides" and it is the second-fastest-growing profession after  network systems and data communications analysts.

Think about that for a moment. That's quite amazing and the implications this will have on our economy are quite significant. This also explains why home care is one of the fastest growing franchise businesses.

The average cost for in-home care is about $20 - $25 per hour so if you need a home care  aide to visit for four hours per day this equals about $100 per day or 3,000 a month on the high end. And a full-time live-in home care aide can cost as much as Assisted Living - $60,000+ per year.

But unlike IT, home-care aides don't exactly make much money. 

According to the article "home-care aides make an annual appearance on Forbes magazine's list of the 25 worst-paying jobs in America. (The aides' mean annual wages put them ahead of shampooers and waiters, but behind parking lot attendants.) Once hired, they leave in droves; turnover rates run 40 to 60 percent a year, says labor economist Dorie Seavey of PHI, a nonprofit that aims to improve direct-care work'.

This won't exactly make it easy to bring new quality people into the profession.

Comments

[Jason]

For care aides who are having trouble finding work and for those companies and individuals having trouble finding qualified Care Aides, Caregivers and health care workers, checkout http://careaides.com the site provide a free resume and job posting service. It is a new service but already many quality care aides using the site.

[Tuesday Wilson]

I find this terribly sad as the work they are doing is sooo important, not to mention incredibly difficult! Here's a good blog called Home Care in Phoenix that provides some great tips & resources about in-home caregivers & caring for aging seniors in general.

www.homecareinphoenix.com

Hope you find it useful.

Best,
Tuesday