Health

20 HEALTH • Fall 2016 As Massachusetts gets older, home care workers are in high demand \\ By Livia Gershon HOME IS WHERE THE JOBS ARE I n 2010, people ages 65 or older made up just under 14 percent of the Massachusetts pop- ulation. By 2015, the figure was up to almost 16 percent, according to analysis by the UMass Donahue Institute. In 2030, it's expected to exceed 22 percent. Among the many changes that the aging popu- lation will bring, one of the largest is the need for home care workers. Many older adults prefer to stay in their homes as long as possible, even if they start needing close medical supervision or assistance with tasks like bathing and dressing. Two kinds of home care jobs—personal care aides and home health workers—are expected to be among the very fastest-growing occupations nationwide between 2014 and 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Who will fill all these positions? Right now, the home care industry and the educators preparing the next generation of workers are trying to figure that out. "Finding good, qualified people is difficult," said Laurie Bender, president and owner of the Natick and Northborough offices of Home Instead Senior Care, a franchise home care busi- ness. "Unemployment is very low in Massachusetts. People have a lot of options for what they're going to be doing." Bender said her strategy for handling the labor shortage is making sure her workers feel supported and respected on the job. Going into a stranger's home can be stressful, and sometimes even unsafe, she said, recalling one client suffering from dementia who had a gun collection in his home. She said she takes extra care to check out the home situation and then introduce the workers to their clients before send- ing them to a house alone. Bender said respect and regular raises go a long way in helping to retain employees, but the uncer- tain nature of the work represents a challenge. Clients may stop needing assistance with little notice if they have to go into a hospital for more intense care. And it's especially rough on workers when a client they've grown close to dies. "It's emotionally draining being a caregiver," Bender said. "When you lose a client, there are some people who move on to the next client, but there are some people who need a break." Beyond the hard work and sometimes erratic hours, home care has another problem as an occupation: It doesn't pay very well. As of last year, the jobs typically paid between $13 and $14 an hour, according to the BLS. Many workers are paid, directly or indirectly, through MassHealth and other public sources, so raising their pay isn't an easy matter, though some unionized personal care aides have reached a contract with the state to raise their pay to $15 an hour by 2018. Even some agencies paid directly by their clients or their families have trouble bringing workers' pay

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