Employment growth in community healthcare sector (an extract from the N.D.I.S. State Manager David Moody)

The employment agency SEEK recently reported a 62 percent rise in community and healthcare jobs in five years since the launch of the NDIS.

The key message for our sector in this article is that community services and development jobs have jumped almost 50 per cent since April 2017.

This report prompted me to revisit the second edition of NDS’s Australian Disability Workforce Report (ADWR), from February 2018. The report bore out the findings of SEEK’s data, but this was only part of the story.

The ADWR demonstrates that, while demand for workers in our sector is growing (which is good), this demand is being increasingly met by the employment of casual and part-time workers.

Other findings of interest in this ADWR were:

In 2016, the Australian workforce increased by about 1.6 per cent, while the workforce in the social assistance/personal assistance/residential care sectors grew more strongly, by 9.5 per cent per year. The disability sector grew even more strongly, at a rate of 11.1 per cent per year averaged over two years.

Compared to other sectors, the disability sector has a high proportion of casual and part-time workers. Disability providers with higher female to male staff ratios had distinctly higher ratios of casual employment, and there are more permanent employees than casual employees in larger providers compared to medium-sized and smaller providers.

Employment gains are coming mainly from an increase in casual employment, The strong growth in casual workers does not represent a ‘conversion’ from permanent to casual, but rather a sector growing rapidly with most of the growth coming through the creation of new casual jobs.

About one quarter of the disability workforce changes jobs every year, and this figure is significantly higher for casuals. The higher turnover rates for casuals increases the cost and administrative burden for employers. The costs of recruitment are estimated to be 1.5 times the wage of the worker, so if a worker is engaged as a casual at a cost of $5,000 over a three-month period before they leave, the total estimated replacement costs would be $7,000 to $8,000.

For the first time, the ADWR was able to rely on a comprehensive analysis of data from carecareers. The findings from this analysis are particularly relevant for a sector that has a vested interest in becoming an ‘employer of choice’. Job seekers are more interested in applying for permanent than casual jobs and, within permanent jobs, they prefer part-time to full-time jobs. Considering these preferences, the sector will likely be less competitive in the labour market if it continues to grow by mainly offering casual jobs.

The disability sector shares in the national trend of an increase in part-time work. In the September 2017 quarter, part-time workers represented 81 per cent of the permanent workforce – and full-time workers 19 per cent.

There is a downward trend over the last two years in the average hours of work per week for workers in the sector. Compared to the general labour market, both the decline and the level of average hours in the disability sector are unusual.

In workforces with similar proportions of part-time workers, the average hours of work per week sits at around 26 hours, while in the disability sector the average is about 20 hours per week. The high proportion of part-time jobs in the sector does seem to match applicant preference, but the decline in average hours puts the sector at risk of not offering enough hours to attract and retain talent.

What do high-quality jobs in the disability and community mental health sectors look like?

NDS will use this data to advocate for pricing that supports high-quality jobs and allows the sector to retain a skilled and experienced workforce. But when we talk about ‘high-quality jobs’, what do we mean?
It’s not possible to say precisely what the disability jobs of the future will look like. In an environment in which the consumer is in control, we must be cognisant of the current and likely future needs and expectations of the consumer. We know that NDIS participants have a range of expectations about the supports they wish to access under the NDIS, and the workforce they believe they’ll need to deliver these supports. We know that participants get frustrated when the teething problems of the NDIS and its immature and often thin markets for services are a barrier to realising these aspirations.

Some have suggested that the silver bullet to deliver flexibility in service provision is for the sector to ‘go casual’, jobs that provide opportunities for training, professional growth and a career path; jobs valued by our community at a time when demand for services is growing rapidly; and jobs that are so worthwhile they will allow our sector not just to grow the workforce, but to retain it. This last point is a particular issue, given recent announcements by the Commonwealth Government in the 2018-19 Budget of significant new funding for the aged care sector and its workforce.

Just as important is that a key driver for people wanting to work in our sector is that they want to make a real difference in the lives of people with disability. To do this, they need to build strong relationships with the people they support and get to know their aspirations, family and carers and circumstances. This is also what people with disability are saying they want. They do not want a whole range of people supporting them in their everyday lives, but a small group of trusted support workers. Casual employment in its intended form is irregular. Building a relationship requires regular contact and, for most participants, that means support during particular set hours of the week.

This is not to say that a mature market for disability services should make no provision for permanent employment; the sector must have a cohort of workers able to be engaged on a casual or non-permanent basis.