Foreign-born aged care workers in Australia: A growing trend.

Aim To address Australian aged care workforce challenges, a deeper understanding of the current care workforce is needed especially given estimated increases in demand. We provide a national picture of the aged care workforce in Australia focusing on country of birth. Methods Data from the 2006 and 2011 Australian censuses. Results The majority of care workers are Australia-born followed by those born in the United Kingdom, South-East Asia and South Asia. While the number of carers from all regions has grown, the increase from 2006 to 2011 has been highest for carers from South Asia (333% increase) and sub-Saharan Africa (145%). The state with the largest decrease in the proportion of Australian-born care workers is Western Australia where Australian-born workers dropped from 62% in 2006 to 49% in 2011. Conclusions Understanding the migration patterns of the aged care workforce in Australia is critical to health workforce planning given increasing demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]