110,000+
Direct-care workers needed by 2030.
Every provider is fishing the same pond, and the pond is shrinking. This shortage isn't ending soon.
Care Workforce Labour Market Study
Aged Care Workforce
The sector is short-staffed. The bucket is leaking.
Australia is short tens of thousands of aged care workers, and your recruitment team is doing extraordinary work filling roles in a market that barely has candidates. Then twelve weeks later, someone walks out the back door, and the cycle starts again. ethyx doesn't pour more water into the bucket. It helps you find the holes, and patch them.
The market you're operating in
You already know the problem. Here it is in three numbers.
A shortage nobody manufactured, a workforce that keeps turning over, and a real cost every time it does. None of this is a recruitment failure. It's a leak, and the leak is the part you can fix.
37–45%
Of your carers, gone within a year.
One of the highest turnover rates of any sector, roughly double the cross-industry average.
Sector-average annual PCW turnover
$15–25k
To replace a single carer.
Recruitment, checks, onboarding, mandatory training, supervision and ramp. Before any agency cover.
Per-carer replacement cost · excludes agency
How ethyx solves it
Three steps. Three and a half minutes. Or $23,860 to replace the carer you lose.
ethyx turns decades of behavioural science into a single pre-employment check, built for aged care, so you can hire carers most likely to stay.
STEP 01
A 3.5 minute survey
Sent by SMS and email. No login, works on a phone between shifts, and 90% of carers finish it. It asks about readiness for care work, not skills on paper.
STEP 02
A readiness score for every candidate
Answers are scored against a validated model of commitment. Each carer is placed on a readiness spectrum, from not yet considering the role to ready to commit.
STEP 03
A hire recommendation, not a number
A plain-English profile for each candidate: where they sit, why, and what to ask them at interview. Ready to use, no interpretation needed.
Proven results
Increase in retention
+105%
more candidates still employed at 13 weeks
n = 9,500 participants. Disability employment with Employment Services Queensland and Job Futures.
Longer tenure
2×
as likely to still be in the job at 6 to 9 months
Study of 1,213 jobseekers. The most ready candidates, versus the least.
Dropout risk caught
77%
of High Risk candidates do not sustain employment
The flip side. The cost of not screening.
ITAC 2026 Finalist
Nominated for an ITAC Award with Feros Care.
An award-winning aged care provider put ethyx side by side with their most experienced recruiters, across roughly 200 candidates, and it reached the same hiring calls every time. See exactly how the pilot ran.
What people say about us
“World leading.”
“Profound.”
“It identifies who will stay before they're even hired.”
“I fear this tool is great.”
Aged care
Your workforce costs, benchmarked. Your wins, surfaced. Your report, instant.
This calculator models your full aged-care workforce cost stack, from base labour and agency uplift to the hidden churn tax of replacing leavers, and benchmarks every key metric against sector averages from the latest government data. Where you're outperforming, we'll tell you. Where there's opportunity, we'll show you exactly how much. Generate a personalised, password-protected report in under two minutes — no AI-generated fluff, just industry data and hard work.
Report delivery
Get your personalised report
We'll generate a password-protected link with your numbers, continuity view, and evidence-backed retention strategies.
Workforce mix (FTE)
16.6
RN
9.4
EN
55.0
PCW
TOTAL MONTHLY WORKFORCE SPEND
$735k
Per month — sum of base labour, agency uplift, overtime, and turnover. Breakdown follows.
Churn loss (monthly)
$34,851Turnover & replacement from the breakdown below — exit run-rate cost.
Churn loss (annual)
$418,206Same basis as monthly — full-year run rate (×12).
Agency spend (monthly)
$27,787Agency uplift on covered shifts — matches the agency line in the breakdown below.
Agency spend (annual)
$333,450Same basis as monthly — full-year run rate (×12).
Monthly workforce spend
Base labour
Own-staff ordinary hours + on-costs
$654,041
Agency uplift on covered shifts
Incremental cost above own-staff roster rates
$27,787
Own-staff overtime uplift
OT share × blended penalty loading
$18,640
Turnover & replacement cost
Annualised recruitment + ramp cost ÷ 12
$34,851
AN-ACC direct-care funding received (monthly)$967,542
Workforce spend as % of AN-ACC direct-care revenue76%
Computed cost per hire (all-in)$12,583
Your agency reliance is low
You're investing in your people from day one
You're outperforming sector average on 7 metrics. See the full breakdown in your report.
ethyx opportunity · annualised
$195kper year
Modelled ethyx savings (monthly)$16k
Modelled only on agency uplift, overtime, and turnover — not base labour. About 2% of annual workforce spend ($8.82M/yr). Illustrative; not a quote.