COVID-19 leads to boom in in-home care sector
Posted Jan 23, 2021 9:00 am.
Last Updated Jan 22, 2021 7:47 pm.
CALGARY (660 NEWS) – Private in-home care companies are looking for workers as demand for alternative senior care grows.
The COVID-19 pandemic has many people looking for alternative private care for their seniors, resulting in private providers expanding their businesses.
Fred Franchuk, managing partner of Home Instead in Calgary says they are looking to hire 35 more people right now as part of hiring week to help offer in-home care to more clients.
He says, because of the downturn, they have seen a lot of people applying from non-traditional areas of the workforce.
“We are getting a lot of applicants from the hospitality industry, from the airline industry, from various non-traditional sources.”
He says a lot of the applicants are looking for a change.
“It’s kind of alarming because what I think is happening is the government vendor agencies are not keeping up their home care hour visits to the clients so many of these caregivers are coming to us because we are, inf act, attracting new clients rapidly. So, they’re happy to continue their work.”
Franchuck’s belief is it doesn’t take special skills to care for seniors – it takes a special person.
He adds Baby Boomers will fuel high demand for private in-home care for the next two decades.
