The desperate response in 2020 for care workers (COVID etc.) saw the creation of a business model for criminals to exploit tens of thousands of people into paying for visas to come to the UK. It also saw the creation of conditions for modern slavery / exploitation. The answer is not more visas.
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oh, they're all on much higher salaries than younger people, as well.
Providers are often paid on the delivery of care on a daily or hourly basis.
No staff = No care = No compensation.
And then those providers go out of business.
1/
LA funding rarely increases in line with inflation and shelf-stacking jobs often compensate better.
2/
Those visas may be nothing more than a plaster, but without it, providers will bleed out.
3/3
Am I expecting this to change any time soon?
No.
The historic high for vacancies was reached in 2021/2022 (foreign workers have since helped to bring it down).
See: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/social-care-360-workforce-carers
Now there are zero EU staff, the UK staff seem to all be "management" and Asian / African staff doing all the actual care work.
The home is massively understaffed.
If they actually wanted to fix the problem, surely that's the wrong place to start?
Starmer believes he can completely eliminate the threat of Reform by focusing on this.