Care industry: What will it take for vital care workers to get an increase in salary?

There are renewed calls for care workers to be paid more, particularly in London.

Frontline staff have been working flat out during the pandemic, looking after some of the country’s most vulnerable and sick while risking their own health after well-known shortages of PPE in many care homes up and down the country.

Many have been on minimal wages, operating around the clock to get anything close to a basic standard of living.

A spokesman for OUTT.com, a jobs marketplace connecting carers and employers to shifts and care vacancies focused on London, is calling for a pay increase, particularly for workers living in the nation’s capital where the cost of living is far higher.

The spokesman said: “We are asking for an increase in pay for care workers, particularly in London.

“We feel a minimum wage increase will not provide a ‘real-time’ increase in cash for low-paid workers as it simply pushes them over the tax threshold which has now been frozen for many years.

“All minimum wage does is push up the cost of purchase for industries with minimum-wage workers, meaning an effective increase in cost of living.”

The company recruits social carers, guaranteeing a fair wage for jobs in the capital with the workers controlling the amount of shifts they do.

OUTT.com has an easy-to-use phone app to help with organising shifts.