To succeed this decade, seniors housing and care will have to deal with its wage structure in order to succeed.
The title today, Let’s Talk About Higher Wages, was actually the title of last Sunday’s editorial in The New York Times. As many of you know by now, there is not much I agree with in The Times, because of its liberal bias in general, and its frequent attacks on nursing homes.
While the editorial was more from a policy perspective, believing that higher wages will drive economic growth, I still believe labor and wages will be “the” key issue moving forward in our sector, post-pandemic, of course.
I keep hearing of staffing shortages in our sector, and this at a time when census across the country is down by about 10%, sometimes more, and unemployment remains high. And then there are those nurses strikes at hospitals and nursing homes. While I hate strikes by caregivers, they do have a point.
Not to sound like a broken record, and I will, but for the senior care sector to thrive and attract the workers it will need in this decade and beyond, something has to be done about the wage structure. And if we don’t take the lead on it, we will be left behind as second-class citizens compared to other healthcare jobs. This cannot happen. Seniors housing and care will be the fastest growing sector in the country, in and outside of health care, and it is time to take a leadership role, pandemic be damned.
