Reported reasons for job shifting in the English care sector

With the projected increase in social care jobs from 24% to 65% by 2025, it is fundamental to improve current staff retention and maintain quality and skills. This is particularly important with the changing nature of care work and the increased emphasis placed by the government on workforce skills and training levels. The current issue of SCWP provides a picture of care workforce stability and job shifting patterns using NMDS-SC returns up to end of 2009. The current data provide valuable information on the perception of a large sample of all social care employers on the rarely examined topic of patterns of job shifting among the care workforce. One of the main findings of the current analysis is that a large percentage of leavers remain within the sector, or in related sectors such as health, while very small proportions are perceived to be leaving for the retail sector. This indicates job rather than occupation switching, and implies that occupation embeddedness is present within the care sector. However, the analysis highlights important sectoral differences in perceived reasons for leaving care jobs. More staff from the private sector leave their jobs due to concerns over pay and unfavourable organization conditions, confirming results related to pay presented in Issues 6 and 7 of this Periodical.