...

Careers in the health and care sector are seen by workers as unsustainable

• Over half of respondents said their career is not sustainable until retirement age. Among the next generation of care workers – workers aged 18 to 34 – around 65 Percentage said their career is not sustainable until retirement age.
• A shocking 62.6 per cent of health and care workers surveyed said they are either “unsatisfied” or “very unsatisfied” with their compensation. Just 1.7 per cent said they were “very satisfied”.
• Quality of compensation – both monetary and non-monetary – is deeply linked to employee turnover. Workers who are dissatisfied with their pay are significantly more likely to see their career in the health and care sectors as unsustainable.

Widespread short-staffing drives turnover and reduces quality of care

• Short-staffing is widespread in the health and care sectors, all around the world. Nearly seven in ten workers regularly experience short-staffing, with 36.4 per cent saying they “always” work short-staffed.
• Among workers who are “never” short-staffed, 71.5 per cent of surveyed health and care workers said their career was sustainable until retirement. For those who said they “often” or “always” work short-staffed, this number falls to 43.2 per cent.
• Short-staffing has a direct negative impact on quality of care. Among workers who said they regularly experience short-staffing, nearly two-thirds (66.1 per cent) said that insufficient staffing causes a decrease in quality of care for patients and residents.

Health and care workers face significant health and safety threats

• Around a quarter of workers reported having su ered a long-term injury with e ects lasting more than one month. For workers who reported “always” working short-staffed, this rose to one-third.
• 56.3 per cent of respondents reported experiencing anxiety, depression or burnout as a result of their job.
• 86.2 per cent of workers have experienced or witnessed harassment, violence or discrimination on the job, and more than a third (37.0 per cent) of respondents report experiencing or witnessing violence or harassment at work at least monthly.
• Just two in five workers say they feel “safe” or “very safe” on the job.

Many migrant care workers see their careers as unsustainable

• 57.4 per cent of respondents who self-identified as migrants or immigrants reported having personally experienced discrimination at work, significantly higher than the 44.9 per cent of non-immigrant respondents who experienced the same.
• Two out of five (40.5 per cent) self-described immigrant workers said they do not consider their jobs to be sustainable until retirement age, raising doubts about policies that seek to address the staffing crisis by recruiting workers from abroad rather than dealing with underlying job quality issues.

Union members are more likely to see their careers as sustainable

• Union members were significantly more likely than non-union members to say that their career is sustainable until retirement age (50.2 per cent vs. 39.3 per cent for non-union members).
• This effect may be related to the higher quality of compensation union members enjoy. Union members reported receiving significantly more non-pay benefits (e.g. retirement plan, paid time off), than non-union members.

...