On Thursday, July 13, we hosted a webinar entitled, “The Coming Labor Market Shock to Senior Care,” with panelists Glenn Barclay of Quality Senior Living, John Gonzales of SDG Senior Living and Lori Porter of the National Association of Health Care Assistants. For 90 minutes, the panel discussed how the industry will deal with a labor shortage, improving retention rates, improving onboarding and training practices, an increased minimum wage to $15 per hour in the coming years, technology’s impact on labor demands and how middle market operators will be able to deal with these changes. If you’d like to hear a recording of the webinar, click here.
Needless the say, the industry has a lot of work to do to still provide quality care to a growing number of seniors, including vastly improving how the industry markets itself to potential applicants, spending more to improve retention at the community level, and being creative to adapt to rising wages, shrinking census and changing acuity, among other issues. But we also asked for our audience’s input.
First, we asked them which sector would be hit hardest by the coming labor crisis: seniors housing or skilled nursing? A majority (61%) responded with skilled nursing, which did not surprise us, as labor accounts for a bigger portion of the facility’s expenses, when compared to seniors housing. And then, we asked what owners and operators should be worried the most about in the next 5-10 years: the labor shortage, a $15/hour minimum wage or rising acuity. To which, 70% (and all three panelists) believed that the labor shortage is the most worrisome issue, with the minimum wage taking the remaining 30%.
We also included a couple of scenarios of how a skilled nursing facility or an assisted living community’s bottom line (and value) would be affected if the minimum wage rises to $15/hour. The results were stark (again, check out the webinar in its entirety), and should put the issue on the minds of many in the industry.
