Beyond Applause? Improving Working Conditions in Long-Term Care
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This report presents an in-depth cross-country analysis of how long-term care workers fare along the different dimensions of job quality. In the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the applause for care workers was a clear expression of the strong recognition of their hard work and exposure to risks in their job. However, as the applause faded after the peak of the crisis, questions have re-emerged about how to improve the working conditions of long-term care workers in a sustainable way. Over the coming decades, the demand for these workers will increase substantially. Several countries are already facing shortages as the large baby-boom generation joins the older population.
To go Beyond Applause, a comprehensive policy strategy is needed to tackle poor working conditions and insufficient social recognition of long-term care work, attract workers in the sector and avoid labour shortages reaching unacceptable levels. Such a strategy should cover several dimensions, with different priorities across countries depending on their specific context, including: direct interventions to raise wages and increase staff requirements; increasing public financing and fostering the leading role by governments; supporting collective bargaining and social dialogue; strengthening training; increasing use of new technologies; and, strengthening health prevention policies.
Also available in: French
Work environment and collective bargaining in long-term care
This chapter provides an overview of the work environment and of collective bargaining in long-term care. It shows that long-term care workers have somewhat shorter tenures than other employees. It reveals that the quality of the working environment in long-term care is rather poor, as the work is both physically and mentally arduous, often takes place at burdensome times, and that training opportunities and enforcement of labour regulations are limited for some groups of long-term care workers, in particular personal care workers providing home care. Finally, the chapter analyses collective bargaining in long-term care, revealing that in several countries workers’ representatives in the long-term care sector are not strong enough to negotiate tangible improvements in wages and working conditions.
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