재가요양보호사 월급As the elderly population increases, the issue of caring for them is also rising to the surface. In particular, at a time when the role of caregivers who provide nursing services is becoming more important, aftereffects are popping up everywhere, such as pay issues for them and demands to improve the age of workers.
According to the National Health Insurance Corporation on the 27th, as of 2020, about 837,000 people obtained a nursing care worker license, but the number of active personnel working in the field was only about 16,500. 8 out of 10 people only obtain certifications but do not actually work.
The main job of nursing care workers is to assist the lives of very elderly people in their 70s and 80s who have difficulty moving around. For example, in the case of elderly patients, lying down for a long period of time can cause bedsores, which rot the buttocks, etc., and caregivers work to prevent this by directly lifting the patient’s body and changing its posture.
They also assist with eating at meal times or doing errands in the bathroom. Except for medical matters and housework, most of the patients assist with their daily lives. Nursing care workers work to help patients who receive in-home services or patients admitted to senior living facilities. However, due to the hard work, the departure of nursing care workers has recently become serious in the field.
Looking at the annual dropout rate, 42.42% was from 1 to 2 years, 35.91% was from 2 to 3 years, and 10.87% was from 3 to 4 years. Most people quit their jobs before they reach 5 years or more. In an interview with the Women’s Economic Daily, Kwon Tae-yeop, Chairman of the Korea Senior Welfare Association, said, “In a nursing residential facility, a person must have worked for a total of 5 years or more to be classified as a highly skilled person who can respond to various nursing situations.” “Also, we are improving. However, because we are unable to pass this period, a vicious cycle is being repeated, with new employees being recruited and retrained every time.”
The biggest reason why they leave the field after working for a short period of time is the salary level, which is significantly lower than the intensity of the work. In nursing care-related institutions, such as nursing residential facilities, most elderly dementia patients are present. According to data from the National Statistical Office, the proportion of dementia patients among residents of elderly care facilities reaches 61.2% of the total as of 2021.
In particular, there are many cases where it is necessary to care for patients with severe or very severe dementia, and because these patients have many risky behavior factors, difficult situations often arise for caregivers.
Mr. A (68), a nursing care worker working at ‘Yegawon’, a senior living facility located in Yeongwol, Gangwon-do, told this paper, “There are many dementia patients who show aggressive behavior such as screaming or refusing to eat due to behavioral symptoms of dementia.” He complained, “Especially when a male patient shows these behavioral symptoms, it is not easy to manage it even with two caregivers over 60 years old.”
Another care worker said, “After starting this job, I developed arthritis and bruises all over my body. I am also in the elderly age group of 65 years or older, and it is a ridiculous situation where an old person is taking care of a person in his 70s. At first, I started to earn pocket money. “It’s a physically demanding job, so I’m thinking of working until this month and then quitting.”
In the case of nursing care workers, unlike other welfare-related occupations such as social workers or life coaches, there are no salary guidelines. For other occupations, in accordance with the salary guidelines set by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, facilities are required to pay a set salary, such as salary level 1 for the first year and salary level 2 for the second year. Because there are no guidelines, most caregivers receive the minimum wage.
From the facility’s perspective, the position is that since there are no guidelines for nursing care workers and there is no manpower support, there is bound to be a burden on the salaries that must be paid to them. The Ministry of Health and Welfare has also proposed standards for manpower management costs, but has not come up with any specific measures to address the large difference between manpower management costs and actual labor costs paid to workers.
For this reason, even among young people in their 20s who graduated from the Department of Social Welfare, the rate of employment as nursing care workers is close to 0%. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s ‘2019 Long-Term Care Survey’, the average age of care workers was 58.7 years old, with most people in their 50s and 60s, including 40.4% in their 60s and 39.4% in their 50s. Gender: 94.7% of nursing care workers are women. In the end, the ‘vicious cycle of manpower shortage’ is being repeated, with people aged 65 or older getting jobs as care workers as a means of ‘earning pocket money’ and then quitting after less than five years.
An official in the nursing industry said, “When we enter a super-aging society, the number of caregivers to care for the elderly will be at least four times higher than the current workforce. If things continue this way, the elderly will end up taking care of the elderly and end up receiving help themselves.” “We will not be able to escape the vicious cycle,” he suggested. He added, “It is urgent to take measures such as improving the supply and demand of foreign workers and labor costs as soon as possible.”
