You are ACE! spotlights

A wave of Filipino workers is breathing life into struggling regional towns, while helping older Australians stay and age in their own communities.

In the New South Wales town of Gilgandra, the council-run aged care facility faced challenges attracting new staff to the area. As a result, the bill for casual agency staff was around $300,000 annually.

The local community warmly welcomed the new workers on their arrival, rallying together to organise group housing for the new residents, ensuring they felt comfortable and supported.

Many were focused on upskilling their qualifications, a step that not only helps them gain residency but also enables them to reunite with their families and build a new life in Australia.

Donna Dobson, Director Aged Care and Disability for Gilgandra Shire Council said: "The initiative has been incredibly successful, and we are excited to announce plans to employ an additional 10 international workers."

Australia is among a long list of wealthy countries where birthrates and populations are collapsing, leading to a rapidly ageing demographic.

Australian International recruitment specialist Dan Sandiford, CEO of Groworx Global, says immigration is the only sustainable practical solution for our aged care sector’s workforce crisis.

“In Germany and Japan aged care is in the press a lot as the population there is much older than in Australia,” he said.

“Australia’s problem is that we are lagging the rest of the world in sustainable immigration policy to solve the looming workforce crisis.

“There’s a huge problem in all these rich countries with shrinking workforces. This has led to the aged care dependency ratios reaching critical levels.”

For his groundbreaking efforts, Mr Sandiford was recently nominated in the You are ACE! recognition campaign by the Aged and Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA).

ACCPA CEO Tom Symondson said migration is a vital part of the workforce supply for aged care.

“There is currently a critical shortage of registered nurses in aged care. Modelling recently released by the Department of Health and Aged Care shows a shortfall of almost 6,000 registered nurses in 2024-25,” he said.

“However, migration is just one part of the puzzle for addressing systemic workforce supply issues in aged care. A multi-pronged approach is needed, including education, skills, training and incentives, such as housing, to attract and retain aged care workers.”

Previous research by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), shows there would be a shortfall of at least 110,000 direct-care workers by 2030. In a 2021 report, they estimated overseas workers made up around 30 per cent of the aged care workforce.

“While we can’t rely on overseas workers alone, we know that they will continue to make up a significant part of the aged care workforce,” Mr Symondson said.

Groworx Global now works almost exclusively in partnership with NSW and Queensland aged care providers to train offshore Filipino workers for critical roles in nursing, aged care support and allied health. And they’re expanding to serve the demand in regional towns around Australia.

“The positive flow on effects for these communities is phenomenal. The workers are highly motivated and they want to build new lives in Australia, which translates into drastically improved worker retention quality and ROI,” Mr Sandiford said.