Report on Building a Resilient and Sustainable Community Services Workforce for the Future
Our summary
The community services sector in Australia is a critical pillar of societal well-being, encompassing a diverse range of roles from aged care and disability support to youth work and family services. This sector is a significant employer and is projected to continue expanding in Australia, particularly within the aged care sector. This trend is driven by Australia's ageing population, citizens' increased expectations of government services, and a broader transition from informal to formal care arrangements. Despite its central role in the Australian economy and society, the 'care economy' is historically undervalued in Australian society. Other issues, such as marketisation and individualised funding models, have led to more transactional and insecure work arrangements, impacting the quality and continuity of care.
Within this wider structural and historical context, this report, commissioned by Anglicare Southern Queensland (ASQ), investigates the specific factors influencing workforce attraction and retention in aged care and youth work roles through a mixed-methods study involving focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews with current and former workers in the community services sector, and a large-scale discrete choice survey experiment.