Immigration and the aged care workforce in Australia: Meeting the deficit

Population ageing and low fertility rates are placing the Australian workforce in the twenty-first century under pressure. Aged care is one of the key areas of the workforce in which labour shortages can be expected. This is likely to result in calls for these shortages to be increasingly addressed by the recruitment of more immigrant care workers, both skilled and unskilled. Using demographic projections and the limited data available on the current workforce, this paper examines the existing levels of migrant representation and considers the prospects for future increases in overseas-born workers. The evidence shows that staff born outside Australia already compose a significant proportion of the workforce. Immigrants are not, however, equally distributed through the workforce, but are concentrated geographically in metropolitan areas. Those born overseas are also concentrated occupationally, although there is no simple pattern of confinement of migrants to low-paid or unqualified positions.