SURVEY: Home Care Worker Turnover Topped 60 Percent in 2014

More than 60 percent of caregivers working for private duty home care companies quit or were fired from their jobs last year, according to the 2015 edition of the Private Duty Benchmarking Study.

Representatives from more than 700 home care companies participated in the 2015 Benchmarking Study, which is published annually by Home Care Pulse, a consulting company that works with for-profit home care agencies.

The 2014 median turnover rate of 61.6 percent is the highest recorded since the Benchmark Study began in 2010.

Turnover rates among home care agencies in the bottom 25th percentile exceeded 100 percent, the study shows.

Median turnover rates were much higher in the Great Lakes (88.7 percent) and Central (80 percent) regions of the U.S., compared with the Southern, Northeast, and Pacific regions (54.5, 52.2, and 50.9 percent, respectively).

Elsewhere, the survey shows that 62.8 percent of home care agency administrators identified “caregiver shortages” as one of the top three biggest “threats to the growth of [their] business in 2015.”

The survey also includes data on caregiver wages and benefits, as well as agency revenues and profits.

— by Matthew Ozga