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Ageing Australia: Call to add Aged Care Workers to SOL
With the number of people in Australia aged 85 and older projected to quadruple to more than 1.8 million over the next 40 years, Australia's Age Discrimination Commissioner warns that, “We need to recognise and plan for this increased need for health service provision. This is an urgent and critical challenge for Australia: if we don’t provide properly for aged care, we will have a human rights disaster on our hands.”
Speaking at the National Aged Care Alliance meeting in Canberra on Friday, Australia’s Age Discrimination Commissioner Ms Susan Ryan has requested that the Minister for Immigration consider including ‘aged care worker’ on the skilled occupation list.
Ms Ryan said that many valuable aged care workers came from recent immigrant populations and through “more targeted immigration initiatives” Australia could increase the number of skilled aged care workers.
She also singled out career changers as another important source of potential workers for the sector. “Increasingly, aged care workers also come from other parts of the labour market, from second or third career moves, or people coming from declining sectors – and aged care can be a good option for older workers who are having difficulty finding jobs,” she said.
Ms Ryan said a ”looming human rights disaster” in the provision of aged care could be diverted, but only if society placed a higher value on careers in aged care. Central to this would be better opportunities for immigrants and career changers, she said.
“We do not have enough now and unless we introduce new approaches, we won’t have anywhere near enough in 40 years,” says Ms Ryan.
Comments
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Monday, 17 February 2014Hi Liana
I have an established education management company in india and also have a visa subclass 163 for oz. I am looking for collaboration with rtos who can offer courses in she care in india and certify the students here before they immigrate to australia. This will reduce the cost of courses and will have more students joining, especially who dp not go to australia for studies due to their financial constraints. Can you help me in this -
Monday, 17 February 2014
Please read "she care" as "age care"
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Monday, 17 February 2014
This appears to be a rationally sound suggestion. I fully agree with this suggestion.
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Monday, 17 February 2014
Plenty of rtos offering courses, plenty of migrants willing to study and looking to do the work, plenty of employers looking for workers. Even if occupation is placed on SOL, the issue with this industry is the pay, similar to child care workers meeting the TSMIT.
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Monday, 17 February 2014
Lets hope this comes to pass or we'll be all real trouble in years to come
Immigration blog
I have made a submission to Senator Cash to introduce a Live-In Caregiver Scheme much like in Canada. This is also something Australia should be adopting.