A viable care migration programme for Australia's ageing population: Recruiting migrant personal care workers for Australian aged care

Abstract

AbstractScholars and stakeholders alike have proposed the recruiting of migrant personal care workers as part of a strategy to respond to a prospective aged care deficit in Australia's ageing population. In recent years, there has been an increase in care migration to fulfil shortages among Australia's culturally and linguistically diverse and more remotely based populations. However, it is a difficult and resource‐intensive process to recruit migrant personal care workers under the labour agreement stream of the Temporary Skills Shortage visa. This article addresses the lacuna in existing literature dealing with the question of how Australia's migration framework ought to be structured to recruit migrant personal care workers as part of a strategy to prevent, or respond to, an aged care crisis. The article argues that the formation of an aged care industry labour agreement based on geographical and niche subsector labour market need is necessary to ensure the accessibility of the programme to aged care organisations. However, it is also argued that the introduction of a new low‐skill visa would better facilitate the recruitment of migrant personal care workers.