Catholic Health Australia has been invited to attend the Albanese Government’s two-day Canberra Jobs Summit as a voice for the not-for-profit health and aged-care sector, and more broadly the Catholic sector
Catholic Health Australia’s priorities for this week’s Jobs Summit are the easing of migration restrictions to encourage more people to come to Australia to work in health and aged care, and the creation of proper training and funding to encourage local workers to enter the sector.
CHA members employ more than 80,000 people, managing 25,000 home-support consumers, 25,000 residential aged-care beds and more than 13,000 hospital beds.
CHA CEO Pat Garcia said: “We are grateful to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, for extending an invitation to Catholic Health Australia. The invitation to the summit is an important recognition by government of the church’s contributions in health, education, and community care.
“As part of its mission the Catholic sector’s 3000 organisations care for and teach hundreds of thousands of Australians every year, but also employ more than 220,000 Australians.
“This week’s summit is a fantastic opportunity to ensure the Catholic voice is heard around the table.”
Mr Garcia said workforce issues in health and aged care needed to be addressed urgently, given that a CHA study by the University of Notre Dame found there were more than 80,000 vacancies across the sector including 45,561 qualified age-care worker vacancies.
“A fully funded wage increase is probably the most important piece of the workforce-shortage puzzle,” he said.
“But with almost 50,000 jobs unfilled in the aged-care sector we’ll need to move fast on other initiatives, such as better training and career prospects, as well as opening up pathways for bringing workers into Australia.
“There is no silver bullet. Only a concerted effort on all the levers available to us can ensure we have the right people to support those most in need in our community.”
