Last week, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) raised the national minimum wage to $740.80 per week or $19.49 per hour as of 1 July 2019.
But Leading Aged Services Australia (LASA) CEO, Sean Rooney, says that this increase puts more pressure on aged care – and that a funding response from the Government is needed to allow providers to action the increase without compromising services for older Australians.
“Despite wages increasing by more than three per cent per year over the last three years, we expect indexation of aged care funding to continue to be less than 1.5 per cent unless there is a change in Government policy”, said Mr Rooney.
“The situation is even worse in rural, regional and remote areas where access to staff and higher costs are further compounding financial stress . . . In home care, a higher hourly wage means that fewer hours of care can be purchased if there is not a commensurate increase in the value of packages”.
