Staff vacancies in care services 2020
Detailed information on vacancies in the social care sector, including
- vacancies by sector (public, voluntary and private)
- vacancies by type of service
- reported reasons why vancancies were hard to fill, broken down by service type.
Key finding At 31 December 2020, 36% of services reported having vacancies. To put this into the context of the wider labour market, the Scottish Government’s Employer Skills Survey in 2020, which covers all types of employer, found that 11% of all establishments, across all sectors in Scotland reported having a vacancy2 . In comparison, the percentage of services reporting vacancies is over three times higher in social care than across all employers in Scotland (36% compared with 11%).
For adult care services where the care provision was carried out in the home of the person receiving care, there was generally a high proportion of services reporting vacancies. • Housing support services decreased 2 percentage points from 62% of services in 2019 to 60% of services in 2020. o 68% of private services, 58% of public services and 57% of voluntary or not for profit services reported having vacancies.
• Care at home services decreased 3 percentage points from 62% of services in 2019 to 59% of services in 2020. o 76% of public services, 57% of private services and 55% of voluntary or not for profit services reported having vacancies.
• Care homes for older people decreased 8 percentage points from 63% of services in 2019 to 55% of services in 2020. o 77% of public services, 56% of voluntary or not for profit services and 51% of private services reported having vacancies.
• Care homes for adults decreased 6 percentage points from 54% of services in 2019 to 48% of services in 2020. o 61% of public services, 47% of voluntary or not for profit services and 46% of private services and reported having vacancies
