“The old ones always observe the new ones when they first arrive at the residence. I don’t know what they’ve been told, but soon many try to access higher education to quickly get out of here, out of this vicious circle.” The speaker is called Rosa María Nuñez: 44 years old, 1,300 euros per month, night work and half a life working in the same residential center for the elderly in Zaragoza.
His permanence in the sector is surprising for what he has around him. It is increasingly difficult to find professionals who want to stay in a physically hard job, in shifts, with very vulnerable people and usually paid the minimum wage (if you have a full-time job). The first abyss, into which some entities are already falling, is covering sick leave and vacations. Both the workers and the companies that manage these services agree on the diagnosis. Only in that.
The population aging forecasts warn that things are not going to get better: the employers’ association of Catalan residences (Acra) has calculated in a recent study that close to 100,000 professionals will be needed in the next decade – in 2022 there were 199,000 – only in these centers where people who have already exhausted all options to stay at home normally live. How to recruit these professionals if there are already problems in the present? ask different unions, families, experts and entities consulted for this report. 212,000 more jobs will be needed in 2040 to meet the existing demand, according to Imserso.
The social emergency is increasingly urgent. Only a small part of the people within the Spanish dependency system are institutionalized; those that do not also need to be cared for and public coverage “does not reach every day for all the sufficient hours,” explains Julia Montserrat, a doctor in Economics and an expert in the field of dependency care, who warns that in Spain It has encouraged the expansion of the system through the private sector. “You always have to complement: either someone in the family stops working or if you have money you hire someone on your own to cover you where the public is not enough,” he adds.
12% more applications in five years
This reality is confirmed the official reports of the Imserso that evaluate how the system works: “80% of dependent people who reside in their private homes must complement public services and benefits with informal care or privately contracted services.” There are 2.13 million people who have requested a long-term care benefit in Spain, according to the latest data. The figure has grown 12% in five years.
Almost 200,000 of these people are on a waiting list: waiting for financial aid that will allow them to hire someone, the arrival of support at home for a few hours or a place in the residence (the majority of them are private but are arranged with administration). The benefits, in addition to having a “low amount and protective intensity”, suffer from such a bottleneck that 111 applicants died per day in 2023 without having had access to them. The Ombudsman is investigating how many patients are forced to extend hospital stays because they have nowhere to go or no one to care for them.
It is a great boom that, given the scarcity of public goods, encourages some companies to make a comeback. It is advertised on television that they help you hire a person in hours
Julia Montserrat
— Doctor in Economics and expert in dependency
A back operation left María José’s mother with so many after-effects that since she left that operating room she cannot get out of bed alone or take a shower. First, her daughter says, she was assigned 15 hours of home help, but that was not sustainable. She ended up hiring a caregiver 30 hours a week. “I couldn’t pay more than that,” defends this self-employed worker whose mother has a pension of 900 euros.
The employee, who “completed another ten hours in another house,” ended up leaving for a better job and the family began an exhausting search for a new intern. The public benefit that their mother currently has, financial aid that took a year to be granted, is enough for them to pay 60% of their social security contribution (about 300 euros out of 400). The rest of that contribution and the entire salary come out of your pocket.
There are, Montserrat assures, several elements that generate the perfect storm: a lot of demand for services, a lot of economic sacrifice by families and people in a precarious situation who need a job. “It is a great boom which, given the scarcity of public goods, encourages some companies to make a big deal. They advertise on television that they help you hire a person in hours.” But under what conditions?
The Territorio Doméstico association, which brings together domestic and care workers, has been noticing a transformation in the map of the sector for some years. “They are desperately looking for people who need this job with conditions that are not aligned with the value that we demand, decent conditions,” says spokesperson Rafaela Pimentel, who has encountered workers who try to contact the offices of their company. , but they don’t exist. There is no one on the other side to answer them. “Here it is difficult for us to know why there are no unionized people, we are not inside. It is a niche of precariousness about whose evolution we still know little,” says Cristina Antoñanzas, deputy secretary general of UGT.
The version of the companies, those on the other side, is very different. Those who work for public administrations, those who have city councils and regional governments as their “main clients” – this is how they describe them – attribute the precarious working conditions to public prices for each position or for each service.
This is not pressing a button and we will no longer have problems. We have to convince people who go to work in supermarkets to stay with us
Cinta Pascual, president of the Catalan association of Acra residences
The president of Acra admits, in conversation with this medium, that companies have to “bet more on their professionals” but “if they do not increase prices, they cannot be raised.” “In addition, this is not pressing a button and we will no longer have problems. We have to convince the people who go to work in the supermarkets to stay with us,” says Cinta Pascual.
The nursing home association at the national level AESTE – State Association of Residential Services for the Elderly – assures, for its part, that the deficit of professionals has to do with “the lack of social recognition of the sector” and repeats the argument: improvement of salaries depends on “greater public financing.” A study carried out by the Trasform Europe foundation, linked to the European Left party, recalls that the care market in Spain is “dominated by foreign companies” and maintains that this “creates problems for workers and residents.” The trend, the research diagnoses, since 2010 involves the entry of financial investors who promote an “aggressive business model.”
They are desperately looking for people who need this job with conditions that are not aligned with the value that we demand, decent conditions.
Rafaela Pimentel, spokesperson for Domestic Territory
The Government’s new care strategy includes as one of the priorities “strengthening and improving the quality of employment in the field of care to care for those who care.” The latest evaluation report of the System for Autonomy and Dependency Care (SAAD), from 2022, indicates among its conclusions that increasing remuneration is an “unpostponable demand.” The gross annual salary between 2009 and 2020 stood at 17,407 euros, with a significant gender gap.
“We are the best signings for companies”
Isabel Calvo has worked in the home help service for the last twenty years. Their payroll has been paid by six different companies, increasingly larger and less specialized: Nemo consulting, Domus Vi, Seralia, Valoriza, Sacyr and Serveo “through successive subrogations” of the workers. “We are the best signings of these companies and not the footballers. It is cheap labor when we do public employment,” says Calvo. “And this is a ladder upwards, a huge vein in a country of grown-ups,” he adds. According to her experience, “there is a much clearer profile of a worker that companies can take advantage of.” “In cases where there is a need, one is willing to work day, afternoon, night, whenever they want,” he continues.
A Calvo workday could be summarized like this. Three hours in the first house with a list of predetermined tasks: getting out of bed, doing hygiene, going shopping, checking medical appointments. Many days, he says, you feel like you are racing against the clock until you get to the next house. “I thought I had a back for life, but we are human cranes with no technical help, it depends on each house. If there is no one else at home, you see them and wish them. Sometimes if two of us don’t go, we are doomed,” she describes.
What happens between the four walls is sometimes unpredictable. “In some houses they go beyond their requests: they ask us to sweep all the rooms or take the dog out. There are abuses and what companies want is a satisfied customer. Clean the kitchen? Well, you have to clean it,” warns the worker. More or less every year they all change houses so as not to get too close to the users. UGT admits that the prevention of occupational risks is complicated in these cases because “it is difficult to know what happens in each home.” “Improving the collective agreement for home help is a priority issue,” says Deputy Secretary General Cristina Antoñanzas.
It is not only gaining weight, supporting human bodies, but having to do it on the run. It is a situation that is replicated in the residences: “There are many casualties. We are going so tight that if one is missing you already know that you are not going to make it. You reach a point of stress and anxiety that increases your tension. If you are already hypertensive, the prevention and health committee will manage it like this, they tell you that it is a matter of your body that you already had, without considering the triggering factors. I changed to the night shift because in the morning or afternoon I didn’t have time to drink water,” says Rosa María Núñez with the perspective that comes from working for two decades in the same residence.
A few days ago, Workers’ Commissions proposed a comprehensive and state care pact to attack the problem from “mainstreaming.” “If care were taken care of as it should be in Spain, a million jobs could be created,” explains Carolina Vidal, confederal secretary of Women, Equality and Working Conditions. The generational change, attracting young people to the sector, is one of the greatest difficulties “because the conditions are tremendously precarious,” according to CCOO.
The 36-hour day in Isabel Calvo’s company is compensated with a base salary of 948 euros. The sector has been specializing. Since 2022, a minimum qualification is necessary for those who work in home care, but when Calvo started, the interview consisted of answering if he had children, if he knew how to clean a house and if he cared about working with older people. “I claim, with everything we have, that this work is very close, it is very personal and I claim those moments in which we listen to our users, they tell us, we play cinquillo, we play them songs that remind them of their younger days . That – ditch – is also work.”
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