According to Indeed Hiring Lab, home care was a job seeker’s market before the pandemic. The sector’s unemployment rate was “incredibly low,” which left agencies quite challenged in finding and retaining workers whose market advantage encouraged them to job-hop for better everything: pay, benefits, assignments, etc. However, this article from Home Health Care News reported trends from Indeed that home health job postings were down 14% from 2019, although this is not as large a decline as the job postings across the broader labor market.
The author mused that the job posting slowdown could be due to COVID as businesses continue laying off workers despite the nascent rebound. The author stated that first-time applications for unemployment in the first week of September were 20,000 higher than the prior week. However, he also admitted that job postings could be lower because agencies are undergoing financial challenges from lower census and reduced visits. Click here to read our blog on this topic.
All in all, our country’s demographics are in favor of home care and the article concluded that many – especially large – home care employers have ambitious hiring plans aimed at maintaining strong staffing levels. We believe that the current employment climate creates a golden opportunity for agencies to look toward the future (and really, the present for many) of home care contracting: outcomes. Agencies who have more highly skilled staff will likely be able to show lower readmissions, lower costs and top-quality care. This gives the agency a more impactful story to tell at the negotiation table with payors and when interacting with potential referral sources. We advise all agencies to re-evaluate their staffing levels and composition. Do you have the most qualified individuals on your payroll? If not, evaluate any gaps and prepare a plan to recruit workers with top-notch skills, who may have been displaced from their employment. Use this time to strengthen your growth plan and negotiation posture for 2021.