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.

Economies of Scale. Supermarkets are in a much better position. The care sector is highly fragmented and quality of care and standards and demand are inconsistent across the board. This drives down morale and expectations and wages. A care homes business can get to a critical mass, but I do not see that being used to uplift wages and morale. There is simply still too much fragmentation and no clear leadership, standard or brand. the bar is simply set too low.

Some private care homes do make substantial profits. Google Runwood.

Supermarkets are also really just logistics companies. They are just depots to display goods made by other capital intensive businesses. At the point of sale supermarkets get near perfect info and can mitigate losses or maximise on price inelasticity almost instantly. There is no real comparison.

But both supermarkets and the care sector are poorly paid.

Are care homes really that unprofitable?

"Care home operators are making up to £1.5bn a year in profits, which include fees to directors and an array of questionable financial arrangements, according to research undertaken by a thinktank."

@icedcoffees

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

This

I think theres enough profit in the care sector and they choose not to take work on if it doesn’t result in a profit.
There are only a few areas care home owners can cut costs and food and staff are the main two.
It’s the same with childcare, not for profit holiday club charges £34 a day. One run by a private nursery charges £45 a day locally. I assume the £11 is the profit per child.

@ronfa

Are care homes really that unprofitable?

"Care home operators are making up to £1.5bn a year in profits, which include fees to directors and an array of questionable financial arrangements, according to research undertaken by a thinktank."

Hmmm, I've said before that everyone is so focused on where it's coming from that no one really thinks about where it's going, there are undoubtedly funding issues at play, and huge overheads to consider when running a care home, many of which aren't thought of by a lot of people. But I guess unless we really know where the money is going, we won't know if it's companies creaming off profits while paying minimum for things like staff and food or that there just isn't enough to start with.

@TheHateIsNotGood

Both should be paid more; I bet a lot of people commenting here earn more than either job pays. Not even suggesting that supermarket work is more important than care work but both jobs have a necessity - feeding and caring.

I therefore suggest that caring, supermarket and cleaning jobs should be much better paid than many better paid, but comparatively useless jobs. Shuffling paper and tick box jobs, often paid far more than what they produce, including many public sector jobs, should be the NMW jobs.

Carers, cleaners and supermarket workers should be paid at least £20ph and the useless jobs should pay far less to even it out.

That's all very well but market forces determine otherwise. Those people shuffling paper as you put it are in shorter supply as the educational requirements are higher. Therefore they command a higher wage. Pretty much anyone is 'able' to do a supermarket or care job. And just to mitigate the potential back lash, I speak as someone in a job which pretty much requires a degree level education but as it's in the charitable sector I get paid the princely rate of £11.50ph - again - market forces - lots of people want to work for charities rather than in business etc.

@ronfa

Are care homes really that unprofitable?

"Care home operators are making up to £1.5bn a year in profits, which include fees to directors and an array of questionable financial arrangements, according to research undertaken by a thinktank."

Can you post a link to this?

@TractorAndHeadphones

Not sure if Ronfa was referring to the Guardian article but it comes up pretty much at the top of Google.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/07/care-home-operators-accused-of-extracting-disguised-profits

The level of profits need to be commensurate with the risks for any business. Care home operations tend to be asset backed so all things equal that reduces the financial risk. This article is referring to a 10% margin, which is reasonable. It alludes to the art of Thin Capitalisation, where the assets are disaggregated from the trade operation and 'loaned' for large interest payments by an offshore lender. It is perfectly legal. Now that is the issue.

If pretty much anyone can do care work which isn't actually true and anyone can work in a supermarket then why are both crying out for staff?
The supermarket I work in has been short-staffed since last year. Do you think they have raised wages? Really?
Care work takes a pretty special person and it's really insulting to say anyone can do it.
It's only ever said by people in well paid jobs who don't have a clue how hard the work is.

Deepabeeskit

Such a sad response from you. Your free market economic thinking is the reason people are heart sick and the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Economics are bullshit, sad and draining the world of all that is good. In trying to explain it, and that's it's ok, you bat for the wrong side.

@something2say

Deepabeeskit

Such a sad response from you. Your free market economic thinking is the reason people are heart sick and the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Economics are bullshit, sad and draining the world of all that is good. In trying to explain it, and that's it's ok, you bat for the wrong side.

There are two logical ways of determining the value of anything:

• have two parts form an exchange
• have a central governing body.

If you’re against free market economics well and good - but then you’re saying that you trust the government to regulate things. Which they could already do by allocating more money to social care but they don’t.

What’s your solution?

Pretty much anyone is 'able' to do a supermarket or care job.

I'd replace 'able' with 'allowed' where care work is concerned. Just because the bar is low for entry or staying in care work doesn't mean that anyone who's 'able' or 'allowed' is any good at it, and it's pretty important to be good at it - people's lives and well being depend on it.
Unfortunately despite all the noise made by just about everyone who insist that the vulnerable in society should be cared for with respect, dignity and compassion, when it actually comes down to parting with cash to do that then it's always someone else's responsibility.
More staff and better training will ensure better social care outcomes but it will cost money, so we stay with a (maybe) clean DBS and a covid vaccination as entry requirements and an nvq or 2/3 if your employer needs you to to bump up the % rate of 'qualified' staff within a setting, minimum wage or just above and staff paying for their own uniforms and running round like idiots trying to deliver care to too many people for it to be the care everyone thinks their families deserve.
People seem to expect the moon on a stick from care workers but it's all about market forces and economics when you bring providers, the government and cash into it.

@Rosebel

If pretty much anyone can do care work which isn't actually true and anyone can work in a supermarket then why are both crying out for staff? The supermarket I work in has been short-staffed since last year. Do you think they have raised wages? Really? Care work takes a pretty special person and it's really insulting to say anyone can do it. It's only ever said by people in well paid jobs who don't have a clue how hard the work is.

They're crying out for staff because the pay is shit and working conditions are generally terrible. It's a relentless job with an increasing work load and next to zero support.

Agree that care workers are dreadfully underpaid for doing a very tough job. I don’t know what the answer is.

Yes bad money and conditions but people are saying if people don't do it the wages will go up but that's not true.
Supermarket is running on skeleton staff with managers relying on staff to do overtime.
I suspect care work is exactly the same. No matter how short staffed managers /owners will not put the wages up. They'll just pile the pressure on the staff who do stay.
They don't care about the staff or patients just about making the money.

I know a care home owner, he has a huge house, holiday home abroad and a yacht.

I met the wife of a care home owner once. She was literally dripping with money.

For years Local Authorities have driven down the rates they pay Providers due to their lack of funding and increasingly elderly demographic.
Social Care needs huge investment. Private clients subsidise LA rates.
Providers need to cut costs to get any sort of profit - not just with pay rates.

@Tal45

I know a care home owner, he has a huge house, holiday home abroad and a yacht.

How do you know that all of their money's from the care home though? I've met a few who were rich but they owned several businesses. I've never met any who got rich off starting a care home/chain of alone.

Unlike self-employed tradesmen or tech startup founders