Elderly may outnumber underpaid caregivers

A business leader has warned that caregivers may have to be paid more to attract more people into caring for the country's ageing population.

Business NZ employment relations policy manager Paul Mackay told a Carers NZ conference in Auckland yesterday that the elderly would soon outnumber paid workers.

"If that's the case, who is going to do the work and the caring?" he asked.

"That is a question that Business NZ has put to the Government.

"It has not been addressed."

He said the answers included reducing the school dropout rate, boosting immigration - and "destigmatising" caregiving by raising its status.

"If I can get someone to come to my house and do the work that would have kept me at home, and I can go out and earn a better wage, the one who does the caring is always going to be at the back end of the tree when it comes to income," he said.

"That is one of the things we have to avoid.

"We have to have a shift in the appreciation of the value of that work.

"How that is going to manifest itself is unsure, but it behoves all of us to start showing that connection between the work that is done and the value it creates.

"How can you make people want to pay more because they feel it's worth it?" he asked.

He said the issue cropped up in an Employment Relations Authority ruling last week that staff who sleep over in IHC homes for the intellectually disabled must be paid the minimum wage.

IHC's service arm, Idea Services, is appealing against the decision, but Mr Mackay said the cost of paying the minimum wage to staff in all agencies with sleepover shifts would run into "hundreds of millions".

He warned that the cost could drive agencies such as IHC to cut costs by shifting people out of their homes back into large-scale institutions.

Raising caregivers' wages generally, for example by raising the minimum wage, could have the same effect.

"You may have an unintended consequence where people shift towards institutional care because the cost per person is lower, so there is a sting in the tail for pretty much any option you choose," he said.

"If you put up the minimum wage that will get you [more caregivers], but for how long? You need to find the balance point where the market will hold the value you are offering."

Service Workers Union northern regional secretary Jill Ovens said the starting rate for most home care workers was now the minimum wage of $12.50 an hour.

This year's Budget provided a 3 per cent inflation adjustment plus $18 million for residential rest homes to retain nursing staff, but Ms Ovens said that had not yet been passed on to caregivers' wages in most areas.

A leading British employer, British Telecom people and policy director Caroline Waters, told the conference that flexible work policies had helped her company retain 11,000 workers with caring responsibilities and 99 per cent of women who took leave to have babies, compared with a national average of 40 per cent.

She said the company's 15,000 workers who opted to work from home because of caring responsibilities were on average 21 per cent more productive than their office-based colleagues, because they did not waste time commuting and were less distracted.

British Telecom estimated that this extra productivity, plus savings on office space, added £80 million ($182 million) a year to the company's bottom line.