The adult social care workforce has grown thanks to carers from abroad, but the sector still faces ongoing domestic recruitment and retention challenges, a new study reveals.

The latest State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England report shows that the workforce grew to 1.71 million filled posts and vacancies fell to 131,000.

Published by Skills for Care, the report showed this was mainly due to the ‘record level’ of international recruitment in 2023/24.

Around 105,000 international recruits started caring roles in the independent sector during this period and the number of people in the workforce with a British nationality shrank by 30,000.

Over the two years since March 2022, 185,000 international recruits joined and the number of British workers fell by 70,000.

Skills for Care emphasised that this was not a case of international recruits taking jobs from British people as the number of vacancies across the sector remains high.

The report also found that the turnover rate for internationally recruited care workers was 30%, while the turnover rate for domestic recruits was 41.1%.

Skills for Care CEO, Professor Oonagh Smyth, said: ‘It’s clear from our data that international recruitment has been vital in helping the social care workforce grow, but we can’t count on this continuing as we’re starting to see less of it - and the global job market is a competitive one.

‘So, we need to stem the tide of British care workers who are leaving their jobs and we can only do that by improving the quality of care roles so the sector can be more competitive in local job markets.’

Check out: Why social care isn’t just a discharge service.