Behind almost every complaint families make about aged care, rushed care, unfamiliar faces, slow call bells, sits the same underlying problem: there aren’t enough staff. The sector is short of workers, competing for the same people as the disability sector, and carrying mandatory staffing requirements it struggles to meet. It matters because staffing is the single biggest driver of care quality. Here’s the plain-language guide.
The Scale of the Shortage
Aged care has been losing workers faster than it can replace them. An estimated 34,000 workers left the sector between 2020 and 2023 and never returned, and demand has only climbed since, driven by an ageing population and the expansion of in-home care.
The sector also competes directly with the NDIS for the same workforce, and disability support has often offered better pay and more flexible hours. For a support worker choosing between sectors, that’s a straightforward decision, and aged care has been on the losing side of it.
Cost of living compounds it. In expensive cities, aged care wages have made it genuinely difficult for workers to live near the facilities that need them, which narrows the hiring pool further.
The Requirements That Raised the Bar
At the same time, the rules have tightened, for good reasons. Since October 2024, every residential aged care facility must have a registered nurse on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with very limited exemptions. Mandatory care minutes require providers to demonstrate a minimum amount of direct care time per resident, including registered nurse time, and provider funding is now linked to actually delivering it.
These are genuine quality reforms and they came out of the Royal Commission for sound reasons. But they raise staffing demand at exactly the moment the workforce is hardest to find, which is why some providers, particularly smaller and rural ones, have struggled.
How This Shows Up in Care
For families, workforce shortages translate into the things you actually notice. High turnover means unfamiliar faces and less continuity, which matters enormously for someone with dementia who relies on knowing their carer. Stretched staff means less time per resident and slower responses. Burnout among remaining staff feeds further turnover, and agency staff filling gaps, while necessary, means less consistency again.
This is also why the wage rises delivered across the sector matter beyond the pay packet. Better pay is one of the most direct levers available for attracting and retaining workers, and retention is what delivers the familiar faces and unhurried care families are actually asking for.
What to Ask a Provider
Staffing is a fair and revealing thing to ask about when choosing or reviewing a home or in-home provider. Ask how they handle a worker calling in sick, and how often shifts go uncovered. Ask how consistent your support workers or care staff will be, and what their turnover looks like. Ask how they meet their care minutes and registered nurse requirements. For residential care, ask how many staff are on overnight.
A provider that answers these clearly and specifically is showing you something good. Vagueness is informative too. Star Ratings also include a staffing measure, which now requires a home to meet both its total care minutes and its registered nurse targets to score three stars or more, so it’s a useful comparison point.
The Outlook
Being realistic: this isn’t resolving quickly. Demand for care is rising steadily with the ageing population, and workforce shortages are likely to persist without sustained investment in recruitment, training and retention. Wage rises, nursing scholarships and training programs are moving in the right direction, but they take years to change the pipeline.
For families, that means staffing is a permanent item on the checklist rather than a passing problem, worth asking about every time you choose a provider or review care. Information on Star Ratings and comparing providers is on My Aged Care.
The Bottom Line
Aged care is short of staff, competing with the NDIS for the same workers, and carrying 24/7 registered nurse and care minute requirements that raise demand further. The effect lands squarely on families as turnover, unfamiliar faces and stretched carers. It’s improving slowly through wage rises and training, but it won’t resolve quickly. Ask providers directly about staffing, consistency and how they cover absences, because that answer tells you more about the care you’ll actually receive than almost anything else. This is general information, not aged care, medical or financial advice.
Epik Wire covers aged care in plain language for older Australians and their families. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed.
