Almost every English region is struggling to recruit childcare workers with the right skills and experience, according to a TUC report that calls for a new care workforce strategy that guarantees decent pay, conditions and opportunities for progression.
Both the childcare and social care sectors are plagued by recruitment challenges, with many workers earning below the ‘real’ Living Wage, it said.
The union body’s analysis of data collected by the Coram Family and Childcare Trust showed that 97 of 102 English local authorities that responded to a survey were having difficulty recruiting childcare staff with the right skills and qualifications, while 81 said recruitment was “very difficult”.
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Meanwhile, according to government estimates, there are currently 152,000 social care vacancies in England, equivalent to a 9.9% vacancy rate.
TUC’s analysis of Labour Force Survey data showed that 62% of childcare assistants and 61% of social care workers and senior care workers earn less than the ‘real’ Living Wage recommended by the Living Wage Foundation (currently £10.90 an hour, rising to £11.95 in London).
Social care workers earn only around 65% of the median salary for all employees (£21,500 per annum compared to £33,000). Childcare practitioners earn only 56% of the median salary (£18,400), while childcare assistants earn 58% of the median (£19,000).
One childcare practitioner told the TUC that they felt they were “doing teaching on the cheap”.
Another said: “Cannot stress how poor management is, how low morale is, and how demoralising it is to read about huge fees being paid by parents when we are told minimum wage is ‘competitive’ by nursery operators.”
The TUC argued that low pay was leaving many childcare and social care workers and their families below the poverty line, and reiterated its call for a £15 an hour minimum wage for care staff.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “The care our loved ones get must be of the highest standard. But that’s only possible if jobs in care are decent and paid well enough to attract and keep the right people.
“Childcare and social care must stop being Cinderella sectors. Demand for care is rising. Caring is skilled work, and the overwhelmingly female workforce deserves decent pay and conditions.”
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Acute underfunding and extreme government neglect have led to a race to the bottom in the care sector. With pay rates hovering near the legal minimum, care workers often don’t stick around long before quitting for more lucrative, less stressful work.
“Raising pay, improving training and providing a proper career path are essential to end the recruitment crisis, and make sure people get the care they need and deserve.”
The TUC’s A strategy for the care workforce report recommends that the government:
- provides adequate and long-term Treasury funding to enable local authorities to deliver good pay and conditions for the care workforce
- supports local authorities to move towards public provision of social care and childcare wherever possible. Where a decision is made to outsource the delivery of care services, public funding must come with conditions to ensure that contracts deliver decent employment standards and high-quality care
- collects in-depth data and insight to understand current workforce needs in both social care and childcare, predict future trends and support transparency
- gives more attention to contingency planning exercises, so that roles and staffing levels are better understood before any future pandemic or other disaster
- ensures worker voice is central to the implementation of technology used to plan, deliver and monitor care services, to ensure that care workers are aware of how technology is being used and for what purpose, and that workers are not exploited or discriminated against.
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