The LeadingAge LTSS (long-term services and supports) Center @UMass Boston released three new reports recommending providers tap into the foreign labour market to meet staffing needs.
“At our Town Hall meetings held around the country over the past nine months, we hear again and again of our members' difficulties in recruiting the staff they need. This is a crisis. Foreign-born workers are one solution to meeting current and future workforce needs,” Natasha Bryant, managing director and senior research associate with the LTSS Center and lead author, told McKnight’s.
About one-quarter of CNAs and one-third of homecare workers in the US are already immigrants.
Looking at providers across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the US over a year, the LTSS Center found that foreign-born nurses make up about 5% of those employed in the LTSS sector in most of Europe and North America. Personal care assistants make up between 19% and 25% of LTSS providers.
They also found that most common fears about hiring foreign-born workers were unwarranted.
“Most foreign-born workers take pride in their work and want to do it well. And most providers report positive experiences in the employment of these workers.”
LeadingAge is the leading aged care peak body in the US, representing over 6,000 Not For Profits – similar to ACSA here – and both LeadingAge’s CEO Katie Smith Sloan and Director of Residential Communities Steve Maag have presented at our LEADERS SUMMIT.
