PHI released its
new annual research report on the direct care workforce. The report
Direct Care Workers in the United States: Key Facts provides a snapshot of the direct care workforce, including its demographics, occupational roles, job quality challenges, and projected job openings. The report includes detailed overviews of three segments of this workforce:
- Nursing assistants in nursing homes;
- Home care workers; and
- Residential care aides.
Every year, PHI (who will be speaking at AHCA/NCAL’s National Convention next month) releases new data on the direct care workforce, which includes 471,000 nursing assistants in nursing homes (according to 2021 data). Some of the key stats from the report on nursing assistants include:
- The nursing assistant workforce is expected to continue steadily decreasing in size. From 2020 to 2021, the year the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and devastated the nursing home sector in particular, the nursing assistant workforce lost 56,320 jobs—the largest single-year decline of nursing assistants in the past decade.
- From 2020 to 2030, the nursing assistant workforce will have 613,500 total job openings.
- Nine in 10 nursing assistants are women.
- Immigrants constitute 22 percent of the nursing assistant workforce, compared to 16 percent of the total U.S. labor force.
The full report is available here.