Singaporean Long-term Care Workers' Salary and Career Prospects

Assoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong asked the Minister for Health what percentage of long-term care workers are Singaporeans and what is being done to improve long-term care workers' salary and career prospects.

Based on data submitted last year by long-term care (LTC) providers receiving Government subvention, about four in 10 workers in the sector were locals. The proportion of locals varies across care settings within the LTC sector. Home and centre-based care settings have a higher proportion of locals than in residential care facilities, such as nursing homes, where workers have to do shift work and care for less ambulant clients.

As the LTC sector grows and evolves, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) have stepped up our efforts to improve career prospects and salaries of LTC workers, as well as strengthened our support for skills development and productivity improvement.

MOH works closely with AIC to provide scholarships and grants to make training opportunities more accessible to workers. For instance, training subsidies are provided to support workers' development in areas, such as clinical skills, leadership and people management through basic modular courses offered by AIC-appointed Learning Institutes. Service providers can also tap on the Community Care Manpower Development Award to sponsor staff for advanced formal training in nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, social work and healthcare management.

MOH has also been supporting the LTC sector in process improvements, adoption of technology and use of assistive equipment under the Healthcare Productivity Fund (HPF). These efforts aim to facilitate job redesign, increase worker productivity, improve career prospects of employees, as well as allow employers to raise their salaries.

In tandem with our support for skills upgrading and productivity improvement efforts, MOH has extended over $200 million to raise the salaries of LTC staff across 59 LTC service providers between 2012 and 2017. This has led to an average increase of local LTC workers’ salaries by around 30% across providers that tapped on our funding support over this period.

Going forward, MOH is also working closely with SkillsFuture Singapore to develop a Healthcare Skills Framework which will articulate the roles, skills and competencies for each job role at different levels. Providers can use this framework as a reference to guide progression of staff in the healthcare industry, including the LTC sector.

We will continue to work with LTC providers to improve career opportunities and regularly review salaries of LTC staff to ensure that they are adequately recognised for their contributions.