An overview of our progress against this outcome in 2023 to 2024
In 2022:,
- an estimated 84,134 people were working in social care in Wales –seven per cent fewer* than in 2021.
- 226 more people joined the sector than left
- 5,323 vacancies were recorded, which equates to nine per cent of the workforce
- 80 per cent of the workforce were employed on a permanent contract
- the percentage of agency workers had decreased slightly, the proportion of agency workers in:
- commissioned providers was 1.7 per cent (down from three per cent in 2021)
- local authorities increased to 0.5 per cent (up from 0.4 per cent in 2021).
Source: Workforce data report 2022
Around 17,300 people work in early years and childcare in Wales
WeCare Wales
In 2023 to 2024, we continued to build on the WeCare Wales brand to attract, recruit and retain people in the social care and early years sectors.
We further developed the WeCare Wales national campaign and jobs portal, which is being used by more providers.
The jobs portal is an easy way for social care and early years employers to advertise their vacancies and for people to see the vacancies available in their area. We saw an increase in the number of jobs posted on the jobs portal and in the number of applications received.
WeCare Wales
219,286 website visitors
57,675 jobs portal visits
3,551 jobs published
Introduction to Social Care programme
We run a funded training programme for people interested in working in social care called an Introduction to social care.
In 2023:
- 1,079 people signed up
- 580 adults and young people (53%) completed the programme
- 127 young people attended the two-day college programme
- 67 people received one-to-one support from work coach
- 77 gained employment, education or a volunteer opportunity after completing the programme
Introduction to early years and childcare
The ‘Introduction to childcare programme’ aims to raise awareness of what it’s like to work in childcare and advise people about beginning their career in the sector.
In 2023, 205 people completed the programme.
Looking at how to address workforce challenges in social care and childcare
People working in the sector told us that finding up-to-date research relevant to their practice can be a challenge. To support people with this, we've been producing evidence summaries that present research findings in ways that are easy to understand. Depending on the information available, our evidence summaries can offer people:
- a short explanation of how the topic relates to Welsh legislation and policy
- links to relevant data on our National Social Care Data Portal
- promising practice examples from Wales
- access to further support, including our communities of practice, our innovation coaching service, and our evaluation support
- links to related events and training
Understanding attraction, recruitment and job-seeking behaviours
We published a series of reports and recommendations about understanding attraction, recruitment and job-seeking behaviours to support social care employers who are struggling to attract and recruit staff. We also produced two resources for them:
- attraction, recruitment and retention guide - insights into how workforce challenges in the social care and child care sector can be addressed.
- a user personas toolkit - this toolkit describes how user personas can be used to support jobseekers in the social care sector, with several examples of user personas.
First published: 19 September 2024
Last updated: 19 September 2024
Series last updated: 21 October 2024
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