UK employers have been urged to address the needs of carers or risk losing armies of skilled workers.
As the average age of the UK’s working population rises, key staff are being forced to leave organisations to take up full-time caring roles, or are having to combine work and care – often with little employer and government support, experts warn.
Imelda Redmond, chief executive of Carers UK, told a fringe meeting at last week’s Labour Party Conference in Brighton that if business fails to ignore carers, they would “end up in a crisis and not be fit for the future”.
Those who care for ageing, ill or disabled relatives currently make up over 12 per cent of the total UK workforce.
Redmond said carers were critical to the UK as the population ages, hospitals discharge patients more quickly, the focus is increasingly on care in the community, residential homes close and the number of social workers dwindle.
She said school leavers would only fill a quarter of the predicted two million extra workers that will be required over the next 20 years. Employers need to widen their recruitment net and are currently losing highly-skilled people who are
unable to balance work with caring responsibilities.
Jacqui Smith, minister for industry and regions, said the Government saw carers as a priority, and they should at least be included in the right to request flexible working.
However, she put the onus on employers and said they needed to show best practice in allowing workers employment breaks, shared job schemes, home working and phone calls home to accommodate carers. “This is not about major upheavals for employers; its about putting yourself in the position of the carer and finding solutions,” she said.
Kate Groucutt, CBI policy adviser on employment added: “Employers already support employees by offering flexible working. However the Government and the voluntary sector have a big role to play in providing alternative support services and financial assistance.”
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Key statistics
- Three million carers already combine work and care
- Six out of 10 carers have given up paid work to care, yet one in three carers wants to work
- Three in five people will become carers at some point in time
- The peak age for caring is 45-64
- A survey, sponsored by BT, found that 43 per cent of carers at work experienced tiredness and 50 per cent experienced stress
- Seven out of 10 carers found themselves financially worse off
- Every year 2.3 million carers stop caring and need help to get back to employment.
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What Carers UK wants
- Employers to support carers
- An extension of the right to request flexible working to carers
- Increased awareness of carers’ existing rights to time off
- A carer’s tax credit to remove barriers that prevent carers from combining work and care
- Support to help carers back to work if they wish through JobCentre Plus and tailored work programmes
- Ensuring future legislation combating age discrimination includes carers and focuses on the benefits of helping carers back to work
- Greater accessibility to life-long learning and training programmes for carers
- Adequate income if a carer is unable to work
By Penny Wilson
