Another day, another employer whining about a "labour shortage". This time its rest homes:
Resthomes say they are exhausted by the constant struggle to find nurses to replace those they lose to better paid jobs in public hospitals.
[...]
Aged Care Association chief executive Simon Wallace said last year's district health boards' pay rise for nurses continues to strip resthomes of nurses.
"When you've got pay in the public hospitals at sometimes $5 or $6 an hour on average more, it is very difficult to hold onto our nurses."
Well, maybe they could increase wages by $5 or $6 an hour then. Its not as if they can't afford to: rest home companies are hugely profitable. If they build those profits on gouging their workers, and then find themselves with no-one to gouge, then that's no-one's fault but their own. And if they claim that they are unable to operate profitably while paying their workers what they're worth, then that seems to be an argument for nationalising the sector, to remove the wasted money that their profit represents.
