The seniors housing and care industry needs more low-skill immigrants, but is that really the best long-term solution?
The New York Times ran a full-page story Monday on why a constant flow of low-skill immigrants is important for the seniors housing and care industry. Apparently, it is getting increasingly difficult to find locals to fill the growing need for caregivers.
I have two conclusions about what’s going on. First, many immigrants come from countries where there is a different attitude towards the elderly, call it more respect and more compassion. That is why they often make excellent caregivers. On the flip side, I think there is more ageism in this country than people are willing to admit, which may be why many low-skill workers either don’t make great caregivers or just don’t want to enter the sector, preferring Walmart or McDonald’s for the same wage. Let’s face it, taking care of the elderly is not an easy job
My second conclusion, and many of you are not going to like it, is that providers want to increase the number of low-skill immigrants because they will do the work at a lower wage than will Americans. For skilled nursing providers, they need the lower wage because they can’t increase rates to cover increased costs. For the private pay market, however, it gets a bit more complicated. In today’s environment, they too can’t raise rates much to cover increased costs because the competition is doing so much discounting of rates. Raising rates could have a negative impact on census in this competitive market, and declining census has been an industry problem.
There is no easy solution, but I think a starting point is looking inward, identifying why the sector does not attract enough labor, fixing that problem and then developing a long-term plan. Overbuilding will work itself out, but the labor issue will be key for years to come. But raising the wage rate is going to be necessary, like it or not.
