Japan Press Weekly

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2017 August 9 - 15 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

More than 60% of nursing-care facilities struggling with labor shortages

More than 60% of nursing-care facility operators are struggling with labor shortages. This was shown in the survey results recently released by a public-interest corporation which is under the jurisdiction of the Welfare Ministry.

In the survey that the corporation conducted in 2016, the percentage of nursing-care operators who answered they are experiencing labor shortages stood at 62.6%, up 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier. As a reason for this, 73.2% of them cited hiring difficulties mainly caused by the low wages in the nursing-care industry (57.3%) and extremely heavy workloads (49.6%).

The average monthly income for nursing-care workers in 2016 increased by 7,095 yen from the previous year to 224,848 yen, which is still substantially lower than the all-industry average of 304,000 yen.

In the same survey, nursing-care workers who complained about the understaffing situation and who demanded higher wages accounted for 53.2% and 41.5%, respectively.

Past related article:
> 5 opposition parties jointly submit bill to increase care workers’ wages [ March 3, 2016]