Most care workers are earning less than the real Living Wage and left ‘struggling to survive’, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has warned today.
New research by the union body found that more than three fifths of social care workers, senior care workers and childcare assistants and practitioners earned less than £10.90 an hour, the real Living Wage in the UK outside London.
The TUC has branded this ‘poverty pay’, with its general secretary Paul Nowak adding: ‘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.’
Research by the union body in November last year also found that more than one in four children with social care worker parents were growing up in poverty.
The TUC said ‘endemic’ low pay and insecure work were causing a staffing crisis in the childcare and social care sectors.
Every English region is struggling to recruit childcare workers, according to research using Coram data.
Nearly all (95%) of English councils who responded to a survey told Coram that childcare providers in their area were having difficulty recruiting childcare workers with relevant skills and experience.
Childcare recruitment was found to be particularly difficult in the east of England, the west midlands and the north east, where 100% of councils said childcare providers found it ‘very difficult’ to recruit sufficient staff.
The latest figures also found there were 152,000 vacancies in the social care sector.
To address the issues, the TUC has called for a new care workforce strategy, including a £15 an hour minimum wage, an end to zero-hours contracts, ‘decent’ sick pay and new sector partnership arrangements to up-skill care workers.
