To wonder why supermarket jobs pay more than care jobs

[Apacheshadows]

Hospitality pays more too. Costa coffee £9.36 starting salary, Aldi £9.50, some bars and restaurants offer £10 per hour, plus tips I imagine.
Asda £10.97 for night shifts.

I used to work nights in a residential home and earned £8.91 per hour (over 25)
Earned £9.30 per hour as a support worker for people with learning difficulties, where we had no private area to take breaks in, food stolen, we were physically and verbally assaulted and didn’t have our own staff toilet.
Now on £9.25.
Supermarket and hospitality work is hard, tiring and stressful so indeed it deserves to be paid more, but I really don’t understand why care and support work is paid even less given what is required.
Considering applying for nights at Asda for £11 an hour, I’d never get that in my current role.

Profit margins.

It’s mad how jobs are paid. I work in retail right now (concession in a supermarket) and make more than I did working in a nursery. Yet my job is a thousand percent less stressful now. I don’t bring paperwork home with me, I don’t spend time planning educational activities at home and planning how I will extend or simplify them to suit children of different abilities. I don’t stay late to make sure staff ratios are okay because some children didn’t go home on time. Literally the second I clock out I forget everything about work.

I have worked in elderly care (not a care home but going to people’s houses) just for one winter, and you could not pay me enough to do it again to be honest. There were some lovely clients but the job was awful.

@happytoday73

Why do supermarkets make more money than care homes though? Because when I look at the fees charged and how much staff are paid there is a huge gap.. Obviously there is gas, electric, water, insurance, food etc... But it still feels like there should be a healthy profit to be had... I know there isn't.... But don't understand why

Care homes have minimum staffing levels determined by the number of residents and the level of care they provide. They also have to be staffed 24/7.

If a few supermarket staff phone in sick, the supermarket can generally still function. It may take longer for the shelves to get restocked and there may be fewer checkouts open, but unless it's a tiny supermarket, or a massive epidemic, they can probably muddle through. No-one's likely to die as a result of an understaffed supermarket.

It's a completely different ball game in a care home, especially in dementia care, where some residents have to have near 24/7, 1:1 care. And the CQC can shut down homes if they regularly operate at below minimum staffing levels.

I have a friend who does bank work in a care home. The pressure she comes under to do more and more shifts is incredible, and she is often offered a bonus for working at short notice. The home where she works pays £1.20 ph above NMW* and still can't get enough staff to meet the staffing levels. They have just closed down a whole section of the home, because they can't get the required number of staff.

And this is in a rural county in the east of England, not in a big city where there are lots of jobs.

The MN'er who has started threads about being expected to work 4 x 14 hour shifts in 4 days, and 4 times in as many weeks, is entirely credible imo.

*They've been paying above NMW for some months, and increased their rates when NMW went up. Staff have had 6 increases in hourly rate since the summer, they still can't get staff.

@icedcoffees

There's more profit to be made in supermarkets than in care homes.

I wouldn’t be so sure. In the area I live there are 2 brothers that own a few care homes, one of them drives a Ferrari, the other a Lamborghini. A couple of years ago I was in Marbella looking at the super yachts. The second biggest had the Ferrari & Lamborghini parked in front of it (their boat) the only boat bigger than theirs belonged to a Saudi Prince. It looked to me like there could be quite a lot of profit to be made from care homes…

@AlbusDumbledore2234

Because there are idiots out there who are willing to do care work for minimum wage. If everyone said NO... the care sector would have no choice but to pay higher wages which more accurately reflect the job and all it entails. But people keep doing this difficult job for min wage. They then say how they don't do it for the money, they do it because they love the job but they then spend their whole working life complaining about how they are underpaid and undervalued.

P.S. I know a few people who work in supermarkets, its also quite a tough job and not one I would want to do day in day out. They earn every penny they get imo.

But HOW. HOW would the companies pay more? The vast majority of domiciliary care contracts are from the local authority who pay a specific rate. The care companies are asking for more and we're telling them no. We don't have it to give. Do we reduce other services? Which ones? We're already on fortnightly bin collections and have closed sure starts, litter picking and road sweeping are every 6 months, do we close public parks? Remove street lights? Do we increase council tax?

Childcare is shit pay too. I think it’s because it’s a private company working on a not for profit basis and so people are seen as little more than a resource. I am in the process of trying to increase pay for all my girls so we can keep them but I can only do that if we get more kids - so, temporarily, I have to prioritize those who have higher qualifications. I can do this as we don’t have rents to pay (working from a family home). But I would never be able to pay £15/hr like a lot of local supermarkets do for a similar level of responsibility.

@DeepaBeesKit

I really don’t understand why care and support work is paid even less given what is required.

Really wish people would get their head around basic principle of free market capitalism/economics.

What anyone is paid has sod all to do with how hard the work is, and is solely by reference to supply and demand.

There is essentially a large supply of potential care workers available at any time, as it requires relatively little training or experience at entry level. However, because there is a cap on the profit to be made because there's a limit to what people are able to pay for care, the demand for staff doesnt lead to competitive wages.

The pay is shit and yet swathes of people still do it, you have to wonder why?

There actually isn’t a large supply of care workers! I am a registered nurse at a care home and the carers are leaving in their droves because of poor pay and they are not being replaced very quickly at all ! It’s a no brainer if they can work in M and S for more pay ,better working conditions and subsidised shopping!

Because retail and hospitality make money. Care doesn't.

it's quite simple wages are covered by the income form the business no one will/wants to pay more than bare minimum for care so that filters down to bare minimum staff wages.

Care doesn't have to turnover and margin to pay higher wages

@Ozanj

Childcare is shit pay too. I think it’s because it’s a private company working on a not for profit basis and so people are seen as little more than a resource. I am in the process of trying to increase pay for all my girls so we can keep them but I can only do that if we get more kids - so, temporarily, I have to prioritize those who have higher qualifications. I can do this as we don’t have rents to pay (working from a family home). But I would never be able to pay £15/hr like a lot of local supermarkets do for a similar level of responsibility.

But also with child care, there's a maximum people can pay, profit margins are quite small in a nursery. If costs of child care go up much more, too few people will use it and profits will reduce. It's a very fine balance.

@AlbusDumbledore2234…please do not refer to care workers as idiots! So rude and disrespectful !

And the government timed the mandatory vaccination date badly - plenty of Christmas jobs going currently!

@BadwordMcGee

And the government timed the mandatory vaccination date badly - plenty of Christmas jobs going currently!

They're going to have to find a fudge around it. Care homes are desperate for staff as it is, if they lose experienced carers the tories are gonna have to go get their own grannies off the commode.

Care workers aren't paid enough. Getting hit, smacked, spat at, etc. I can remember the care workers I knew at my supported housing being grateful for being sent over to our house for a few hours.

I think the poster above nailed it by saying that it's to do with the proportion of turnover accounted for by the wage bill. If a supermarket puts its pay up by ten percent above local market rate then they'll get the pick of the staff, and they might only have to increase their prices by 1% to recoup that cost because wages are not a big outlay for them. In return for which they'll attract customers who are more inclined to shop based on standard of service, and are perhaps less price conscious anyway.

But the wage bill of a care home or a nursery dominates their profit and loss. If they put wages up by ten percent then they might get their pick of the staff but they'll have to put prices up by around seven percent and they'll possibly lose their local authority contract.

They're going to have to find a fudge around it. Care homes are desperate for staff as it is, if they lose experienced carers the tories are gonna have to go get their own grannies off the commode.

They have already lost them. Deadline was last week for 2nd jab.

@LakieLady

In reality, the CQC take a very long time to respond and investigate when staffing levels are not safe, and care homes are pretty good at fudging, one place I worked had the 'real' rota and the 'official' rota.
One place in the news recently has been under investigation since 2019 for unsafe practice - still ongoing. I would have thought that cqc investigators were as essential as other staff to preserve standards, especially where it's already known people are at risk.
And care homes do run short staffed, regularly, I work in one that does. It's down to the skill of the people on shift that nothing major happens, they do that because there's very little redress not to run short staffed, and needs of residents are decided by the same people running the budget........ So often down played for staffing purposes.

@Spikeyball

Because enough people will do it for a low wage. I know there is a shortage ( Ds doesn't have any support workers because no one is going to the role for the direct payment offered when they can have an easier role for the same amount) but not enough for enough of the general public to be bothered about it enough for it to cause problems. Basically people don't care about the most vulnerable.

Your last line sums it all up, @Spikeyball.

If people cared about the elderly and the vulnerable, they wouldn't keep voting for the party that cares more about low taxation than about those who are most in need in our society.

It sounds like there isnt away to profit out of the vulnerable who need care. I guess the model just about works by exploiting cheap foreign labour but for care wages to go up, local authority contracts need to go up, which means a bigger chunk of tax cutting in other areas or more tax.

@Chessie678

Supermarkets actually run at quite a low profit margin but staff costs are a lower percentage of their overall costs than in care /childcare. A major cost for supermarkets is their stock and much of that is produced overseas by people making much less than £9. / hour. Paying more to UK staff gives the ability to attract slightly better more motivated staff with minimal increase in overall costs.

For care work, staff is a major cost and a small increase in staff wages either dramatically increases cost to the customer or decreases profit margin. And care is not a high profit industry.

Yes. Hospitals and care homes, whether private or public, their staff costs are about 80% of total budget. As there are high staff-patient ratios to fulfil and more staff in at night & weekends. By comparison there is a very low staff-customer ratio in supermarkets.

I’ve seen the same jobs readvertised this month carers in a local home up from £9.50 to £10.01 mobile care workers from £9.70 to £10.25. I think there will be an upward push for wages in the care sector especially when minimum wage goes up to £9.50. This is an example of brexit in action when cheap labour becomes unavailable, like HGV drivers wages have to go up.

But HOW. HOW would the companies pay more? The vast majority of domiciliary care contracts are from the local authority who pay a specific rate. The care companies are asking for more and we're telling them no. We don't have it to give. Do we reduce other services? Which ones? We're already on fortnightly bin collections and have closed sure starts, litter picking and road sweeping are every 6 months, do we close public parks? Remove street lights? Do we increase council tax?

Everything @BadwordMcGee has said here.

I’m a nurse (although no longer clinical) and I remember having a discussion with a painter and decorator who had cancer (I was his chemo nurse) it must have been about 2007 or thereabouts. We got on to discussing pay and it transpired he was earning about 5 times a month more than me - his tiler mate even more. To be fair, they didn’t get sick pay or holiday pay but even still, people would pay more for someone to paint their front room than possibly save their life (not referring to me specifically but nursing in general - intensive care, resuscitation nurse etc). Men who go into nursing generally get promoted quicker and earn more. So I do think there is a gender element. I also think some jobs are seen as vocational and there is seen to be reward in ‘doing good’ so you can get away with paying people less as they are doing the job because they are ‘driven’ to it.

Its because the vast majority of carers are women and a large proportion of those are on tax credits and when you are on tax credits it doesn't make any difference how much the pay is because you get topped up with the difference.

Unfortunately, as more experienced staff leave, the problem won't really be fixed by raising wages to attract new, inexperienced staff.

While providers are running with staff shortages, vulnerable people are being put at risk. Staffing ratios exist for a reason, so that people can be cared for safely, without mistakes during hoisting, transferring, meds, etc. And with enough oversight to prevent neglect or abuse.

Remember Winterbourne View? That was 9 years ago, and conditions for staff have only gotten worse since then. Residents have spent months without visitors to provide an additional layer of social contact and oversight about what's going on in the home. Inspections have been delayed, so if there's bad practice in a home it can become embedded in the culture.

I don't think it's an accident that carers are being vilified in the media over vaccinations. I think it's paving the way for much worse to come, as inspections resume and carers are blamed for inadequacies to take the heat off of the government.