Home-based care will account for the majority of an estimated 1.2 million new jobs in the direct care workforce sector from now until 2030. That is expected to be the most new jobs for any occupation in the U.S. over that time period.

In order to keep up with that growth, industry leaders need to improve financial security and support systems for those new home care workers, according to a report from New York-based advocacy group PHI.

“The home care sector won’t be able to grow fast enough to meet demand unless we stabilize and strengthen the workforce,” Kezia Scales, senior director of policy research for PHI told Home Health Care News in an email. “The costs of increasing home care wages to a livable and competitive level are far outweighed by the benefits of creating quality jobs, a strong and healthy workforce, and consistent, high-quality services for home care consumers.”

PHI’s annual snapshot of the direct care workforce came out on Tuesday. The report provides demographic and economic details on direct care workers and the people they serve.

A direct care worker is a caregiver who assists older adults and people with disabilities with essential daily tasks and activities across a variety of settings.

The PHI report breaks up the direct care workforce into three segments: home care workers, residential care aides and nursing assistants in nursing homes.

Of the estimated 4.7 million direct care workers, a large chunk — 2.6 million — are home care workers. According to 2021 data, 647,500 are residential care aides, 471,000 are nursing assistants in nursing homes and about 1 million are direct care workers employed in other settings.

From 2020 to 2021, the home care workforce grew while the residential care and nursing assistant workforces decreased, PHI reported.

PHI is also estimating that an additional 6.9 million direct care jobs will need to be filled as existing workers leave the field or the labor pool altogether.

“The staffing challenges that the home care industry is already experiencing will only intensify in the years ahead without substantive improvements in job quality and pipeline development,” Scales said.

The home care and residential care workforces are expected to increase by 37% and 22%, respectively, over the next ten years.

As always, wages will continue to be a main sticking point when it comes to improving the home care worker experience. Scales was pleasantly surprised to find in the research that home care wages are on the right trajectory upwards.

When adjusted for inflation, home care workers’ median hourly wages rose from $11.43 in 2011 to $14.09 in 2021.

“The challenge now is to make sure that the short-term investments in wages and benefits that we’ve seen during the pandemic are sustained and expanded,” Scales said. “Otherwise, home care workers will continue struggling to compete with employers from other industries that offer higher starting wages and other employment benefits.”

Home care agencies should start thinking outside the box for recruitment and retention strategies, Scales said. They should also strongly consider partnering with community-based organizations to reach potential workers while also building a unified support system.

“This challenge is so much bigger than any single employer, however, so agencies should also identify opportunities to work together to promote home care jobs, strengthen job quality and advocate for the systemic changes that are needed,” Scales said.