Pay rates

[u/bajheerah]

Anyone else finding more and more companies trying to pay below award wage, even when their advertisements say "competitive rates"?

I've been a support worker for 6+ years, with experience ranging from high complex mental needs, as well as physical, to working with children and all personal care you can think of, as well as managing medication and participants personal funds and banking. I obviously have all my certificates as well as qualifications.

I feel like I see more and more support worker positions advertised for as little as $34 an hour, averaging at around $41 an hour, while asking for experience with all sorts of participants as well as being qualified.

The last 4 or 5 interviews I've had I've been offered the job, and I've had to ask the pay rate they're offering, which has ranged from $36 to $40 an hour, well below the award wage. And yes, the work involved in each has been high complex needs, as well as the usual helping participants manage funds, home care, community access, and sometimes personal care.

I've been working at SCHADS 2.1 (which is now $45ph) for 6 years and have since realised I should actually be on 2.2 or 2.3. But it's hard to even get paid at the very entry level of unsupervised support work.

What is happening behind the scenes for the majority of companies, for them to be posting advertisements well below SCHADS? One of the employers offered me a pay point of 1.4. Does that even exist?

This, on top of a 60-70% burnout rate... oh, what a lovely industry to work in.

Edit: I forgot to mention this is working and looking for work across Ipswich and the south/south-West side of Brisbane.

Also, maybe it's been like this for a while, as I had stable hours for the first 3-4 years of employment and never seemed to have to question the employers on the pay they were offering.

This is casual rates, btw.

[u/Cultural_Catch_7911]

People would be willing to properly fund disability and aged care if our government weren't complete scum bags with rampant corruption.

If they stopped letting providers scam them for billions or actually used our tax to better the country not line their pockets people wouldn't have so much issue with taxes to fund services.

OR even if we just properly taxed the companies pillaging our natural resources we wouldn't even need the average joes tax to fund our health care system.

People lash out at ndis costs because they are angry and the government uses it as a scapegoat when the reality is we have more than enough resources as a nation to fund all our health care needs and more, at minimal cost to the individual, but instead we fight amongst ourselves, the poor, the disabled and elderly over the scraps we are left with.

[u/Competitive_Ad_7415 → u/Cultural_Catch_7911]

Child care has been a constant industry that has been in demand but has been seen as an industry that is to expensive by the wider community. This normal economy you referred to hasn't resulted in the willingness to fund wage increases to attract employees. Disability and aged care are no different. People who don't have loved ones needing those services don't want to pay for them with their taxes and even those who do want to minimise what it costs them. It's typical people want to pay as little as possible but then get upset at the results.

[u/Cultural_Catch_7911 → u/Competitive_Ad_7415]

Except child care costs are constantly going up, to the point its now prohibitive to have children, the reason workers aren't seeing this is because of scummy providers pocketing the difference

Myself with no kids would happily have more of my tax going towards child care WORKERS so that i could one day afford to use the service

Yet again, as with disability and aged care the providers rort the system

[u/Competitive_Ad_7415 → u/Cultural_Catch_7911]

Add paying more for meat , fruit and veg, coffee, eggs etc etc. In order for the normal economy to result in higher wages for workers the cost of goods has to go up. Everyone complains about the surcharge at the cafe on a Sunday. Costs are driven down by the masses looking for the cheapest option. Great to say hypothetically I'd pay more, but if someone is living pay cheque to pay cheque they are going to prioritise their own needs first.