Several Southland support workers are calling for a pay rise as the increasing cost of living and poor policies drive people away from the industry.

The workers received an adjustment to the minimum wage rate adjustment starting from July 1, 2023 to stay in effect till December 31, 2023, under the Care and Support Worker (Pay Equity) Settlement Act passed in the House in June 2017.

However, support workers Pam King and Gordon Cambridge were worried about the future of their sector if no beneficial update was made before the deadline of December 31.

“The unions and the employers are still talking on reasonable terms, [and are] relatively close to an agreement on this. But it won’t happen without the Government’s help to fund it, because it funds the sector,” Cambridge said.

King, who said she completed up to 15 jobs every day, did not have a company car and had racked up nearly 200,000km on her car in just six years. And with fuel and maintenance costs coming out of her own pocket, the running costs did not match up with her wages, she said.

E tū community support industry council convenor and caregiver Marianne Bishop said funding the sector properly was long overdue, and that the Government needed to fund pay equity to ensure the care sector could function properly in the future.

“We have only had up to a 3% pay rise in the last year, with some of us getting nothing, despite the cost of living increasing so much more than that. Everyone is really struggling, especially our colleagues in home support who have to cover their own vehicle costs and other expenses,” Bishop said.

A spokesperson for the Minister of Health said the ministry recognises and values the “mahi by care and support workers around New Zealand”, however, the spokesperson did not answer questions around what would happen to the wage rates after December 31, pay equity in the future and career progression.

Cambridge said that he and King, both in their 60s, had concerns about how the industry would attract younger people to work.

“The care sector is so aged. It’s going to fall over … who will look after us in 10-15 years [when we retire from this job]?”

Cambridge said that the Government’s immigration policies meant that migrants could not be hired in the industry because their incomes needed to be at a certain threshold, or they could not be granted a visa, adding, that the top tier of wages for support workers was $28, starting at the minimum wage band of $22.70.

If younger workers were to come into this profession, Cambridge said, they did not have a clear professional pathway to make a career out of it.

“[They] said let the market decide the sector, but the market has failed the sector,” he said.

A Ministry of Health spokesperson said that the Care Agreement, which came into effect in October 2022, provided an exemption to the median wage threshold for migrant care and support workers and would be in place until October 2024.

The work-to-residence pathway allowed care and support workers who were paid $28.25 an hour to gain residence after 24 months, the spokesperson said.