The Care Economy is a sub-sector of the Canadian nonprofit sector, that is facing an especially challenging road to recovery with human resources challenges pre-dating and amplified by the pandemic. Now we have additional proof that these challenges are being felt urgently and locally. Pillar Nonprofit Network and the Elgin Middlesex Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board (WPDB) released an analysis of the recent EmployerOne Survey revealing that employers in the London region’s Care Economy are identifying greater difficulty in finding, hiring, and retaining qualified workers than other employers in our region. Sector employers and advocates say it’s a sector defined by precarious work that needs immediate emergency supports and long-term regulatory change on the road to recovery.

Among the key findings:

  • Care Economy employers who participated in the survey identified greater challenges than employers in other sectors in finding workers (91% vs 82%), hiring workers (94% vs 82%), and retaining workers (74% vs 69%).
  • Retention is of greater concern for Care Economy employers (75%) than other survey respondents (59%).
  • Notably, “hiring qualified workers” is regarded as a greater challenge for Care Economy employers than “finding” them, suggesting that qualified care workers may be hesitant to join or re-join the care workforce where conditions are challenging and wages are suppressed, either chronically, through funding disruptions, through legislation, or all three. 
  • More Care Economy employers regard financial constraints as challenging (81%) than other respondents (66%) when asked to identify the degree to which they were concerned about a variety of challenges to their organizations “as the economy returns to a normal state of activity.” This finding jibes with the results of Pillar’s Information for Action micro-survey where smaller nonprofit organizations in particular reported worsening financial positions over the course of the pandemic.

For more details or to read the full report, click here.