UK sees rise in exploitation of migrants in care work as homes struggle to fill jobs

Last year, care home staff in north Wales became worried about some of their colleagues who were turning up to their shifts tired and hungry — so hungry they were eating the leftovers from residents’ meals.

After the alarm was raised, an investigation by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority found nine Indian students sleeping on mattresses on the floor in cold and cramped conditions at two addresses. A recruitment agency — the two owners of which were arrested under suspicion of being involved in offences committed under the modern slavery Act — had been sending them to work in six care homes.

Enforcement officials and regulators have told me they are picking up a rise in instances of migrant workers being exploited in the UK’s social care sector. Some are on student visas, which stipulate they can only work 20 hours a week, but they are actually working far more than that. Others are arriving on post-Brexit skilled worker visas but are being charged illegal recruitment fees by the agencies that bring them over.

The Care Quality Commission, which inspects care homes, told me it has made 14 referrals of potential instances of modern slavery so far this year, compared with seven in the whole of 2021, three in 2020, seven in 2019 and four in 2018.

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Adverts for social care jobs don’t attract many clicks compared with similarly paid jobs, and they’ve been getting even more unpopular

Why is this happening? The story begins with the UK’s struggle to recruit enough care workers to look after its ageing population, exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic. The vacancy rate for care roles in England has risen from 7.5 per cent before the pandemic to more than 10 per cent in May this year, according to Skills for Care. Data from Indeed, the jobs website, shows adverts for social care jobs don’t attract many clicks compared with similarly paid jobs, and they’ve been getting even more unpopular.

That makes sense. Social care work is much more likely to involve night work, shift work and zero-hours contracts than competing sectors such as retail, according to data gathered by the government-appointed Migration Advisory Committee (MAC).

These jobs used to pay a premium above other low-paid roles to reflect the more demanding conditions, but as the minimum wage floor has risen in the UK, they have all ended up paying a similar hourly rate. Sales and retail assistants, for example, earned 13p an hour less than care workers in 2012-2013 but in 2019-2020, they earned 21p an hour more on average.

Progression opportunities have also become worse. In 2013 care workers with five years’ experience typically earned 5 per cent more than colleagues with less than one year’s experience. In 2021 the premium had shrunk to just 1 per cent.

Factory work

The MAC, which published a report on the sector in April, heard evidence from care workers who had decided they could earn more money elsewhere in today’s tight labour market for less harrowing conditions. “I ended up taking a job in a factory,” one woman told them. “It pays £11.50 an hour for the night shift. It’s boring, not fulfilling, but it’s less stressful.”

Care workers tend to be paid a relatively low wage in most countries. But pay in the UK seems particularly poor. Across EU member states, people working in residential long-term care are paid about 79 per cent of average earnings, according to the MAC. In the UK, the figure is 71 per cent.

In the context of these problems, the government added social care workers to the “shortage occupation list” in February. This means employers can sponsor migrants to come to the UK as care workers, though there are fees involved and a salary floor of £10.10 (€11.97) an hour.

But visas aren’t a simple fix. Unlike the situation for EU migrants under freedom of movement, the new system involves fees and bureaucracy for employers and a higher risk of exploitation for workers, since visas are tied to employers and overseas recruiters are more often involved.

“It’s lovely to know you’ve made someone’s life better, and you’ve looked after them. It’s what I want when I’m old and I have carers, which I probably will do — I want them to treat me how I’m treating people”

The best way to really fix the shortage of social care workers would be to address what the MAC calls the “persistent underfunding of the care sector by successive governments”, which is the root cause of low pay and poor conditions. Public spending per head on social care is lower in real terms than it was in 2009. A new tax increase dubbed the “Health and Social Care Levy” is a step in the right direction but is unlikely to be enough.

A well-funded social care system would cost money, but it would have many benefits. It would relieve pressure on the NHS. It would mean people being better cared for when they become old. And it could become a source of decent jobs. Social care work is not for everyone, but I have lost count of how many care workers have told me they love it — or at least they would love it, if it wasn’t so badly paid.

“It is a very unforgiving job really in some senses, but it is rewarding in so many others,” one care worker told me. “It’s lovely to know you’ve made someone’s life better, and you’ve looked after them. It’s what I want when I’m old and I have carers, which I probably will do — I want them to treat me how I’m treating people.”

According to the MAC, the social care sector employs about 2 per cent of the working-age population today and might well need to employ about 4 per cent by 2033 to meet rising demand. There are going to be many more of these jobs in the future. The question is: do we want them to be bad jobs, or good ones? — Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022