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Workers earn 67% of the national average and precariousness prevails. Eurofound advises governments to “impose adequate working conditions”.
In Portugal, social service and long-term care workers for the elderly are among the lowest paid in Europe, according to a recent report by the European Foundation for Working Conditions (Eurofound).
According to the document, workers in the sector are the lowest paid rooms in the entire European bloc, surpassed only by Romania, Italy and Slovenia. They take home 67% of the national average salary, according to data from 2014 to compare different countries.
Looking at more recent figures, the minimum wage guaranteed by collective agreements in the private sector in Portugal is also very far from the average wage. In the data analyzed by Eurofound, the salary of a direct action aide in a household started at € 8,708.48 per year, compared to an average salary of € 18,111 in 2019. An aide in an institution for people with disabilities received 8,568.47 € that year and a nurse at the service of a private institution of social solidarity received € 13,580.75 per year.
Green receipts abound
However, low wages are not unique to Portugal in this sector. In most EU countries, healthcare workers receive well below average. In the Netherlands, proportionally higher amounts are received, with a salary representing 94% of the country’s median income.
Eurofound also highlights the evidence of a strong prevalence of green revenues in this sector in Portugal, although the reality is difficult to cover. The data collected for the study exemplify a 49% percentage of self-employed among the nurses of the long-term care network of the Central area, citing a study by the Ordem dos Enferiros.
The same study is cited to point out the difficulties in retaining caregivers, with turnover rates reaching 36% among nurses in rehabilitation and medium-term units, 24% in maintenance and long-term units and 17% in convalescent units of the long-term care network.
Eurofound warns of the growing shortage of these professionals, increasingly disputed by the richest countries, and challenges governments, which often finance the sector, to use this tool to “impose adequate working conditions”, as well as to prevent job. not declared, a reality that prevails in aid contracted directly by families.
CONTRACTS
Employment relationship
For Portugal, the study estimates that the proportion of workers with a formal employment relationship in long-term care represents 3.4% of workers, slightly above the European average.
Women and seniors
It is a sector marked by strong gender segregation, where 81% of workers are women and older (38% are 50 years or older).
Hours and risks
It is also marked by irregular hours (a third work in shifts) and professional risks, since 40% of workers report difficulties in tasks and abuses.
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