The number of Americans aged 65 and older was 54.1 million in 2019 and is projected to reach 72 million by 2025.
The home health care industry is expected to grow by a staggering 54% by 2026.
With turnover rates at an alarming 65.2% in 2020, recruiting and retaining workers is a top challenge.
Now, let’s take a closer look at what this means. America is aging, and not in a subtle way. The numbers are stark: 54 million senior citizens in 2019, 72 million by 2025, and with those rising figures comes a pressing demand for health care services that meet people where they are—at home.
This is no longer a niche market. It’s an industry on the rise, one that is poised to become a cornerstone of our economy. The home health care sector is expanding faster than nearly any other industry, driven by longer life expectancy, advances in medical technology, and an overwhelming preference among seniors to receive care in the comfort of their own homes rather than in institutional settings.
But while the demand is skyrocketing, the workforce supporting this industry is teetering on the edge of crisis. Home health care providers are struggling with employee turnover rates that are downright unsustainable. In 2020 alone, the industry faced an astonishing 65.2% turnover rate. That means that for every 10 employees hired, nearly 7 of them left within the year.
So how does an industry that is growing exponentially reconcile with a workforce that is increasingly transient? The answer: a targeted, strategic approach to recruiting and retention.
The first step in tackling this crisis is organization. It may sound like a simple fix, but in an industry facing high turnover, maintaining accurate and detailed documentation is critical. Home health care providers must create and store well-crafted job descriptions for positions that experience high churn.
Beyond that, the recruitment process needs to be streamlined. Electronic applicant tracking can not only make hiring more efficient but also help maintain compliance and build a strong database of potential candidates for future openings. This is not just about keeping records—it’s about developing a structured, strategic approach to hiring that ensures continuity of care for patients who depend on these services.
Given the lower barriers to entry in home health care, hiring the right people is not just important—it’s imperative. The industry’s workforce must be dependable, compassionate, and highly skilled in caring for some of the most vulnerable members of our society.
Employers need to go beyond standard resume screenings. Implementing thorough background checks is a necessity to ensure that those entrusted with caring for seniors do not pose any risk to them. Additionally, personality assessments can help identify candidates who possess the key traits necessary for success in these roles—patience, empathy, and reliability.
If an employer skips this step, they’re not just risking a bad hire; they’re putting lives in jeopardy.
In such a competitive market, simply posting a job opening is not enough. Home health care providers must take a multi-faceted approach to recruiting by leveraging technology and strategic outreach methods:
Use an ATS: Platforms like HiringThing streamline the recruitment process, making it easier to track applicants and stay organized with our white and private label ATS software.
Target Industry-Specific Job Boards: General job boards are flooded with postings, making it easy for healthcare-related positions to get lost in the noise. Niche job boards like healthjobsusa.com, careervitals.com, and healthcarejobboardnetwork.com ensure that openings reach qualified candidates.
Attend Local Job Fairs and Community Events: Engaging directly with prospective employees at local events can help foster relationships with potential hires.
Leverage Social Media: Potential applicants live online, and recruitment efforts should reflect that reality. Advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Instagram can broaden the talent pool.
The key is consistency—creating a unified recruitment strategy that aligns with an organization’s brand and values. If you don’t present a compelling and cohesive image to job seekers, they’ll look elsewhere.
Recruiting without tracking results is like sailing without a compass—you’ll get somewhere, but you won’t know if it’s where you need to be. Home health care providers must establish robust monitoring systems to evaluate recruitment effectiveness. This includes:
Identifying which external recruitment sources yield the best candidates
Calculating cost-per-hire to ensure recruitment efforts are financially sustainable
Analyzing time-to-hire to assess the efficiency of the hiring process
Tracking job post responses over time to adjust strategies accordingly
Without a structured approach to measuring success, recruitment efforts risk becoming expensive, inefficient, and ultimately ineffective.
In a job market where home health care workers have many options, a company’s reputation matters. A provider must position itself as an employer of choice, not just another faceless organization looking to fill vacancies.
A strong employer brand communicates that an organization values its employees. This includes offering competitive wages, professional development opportunities, and a supportive work environment. Employers that actively invest in their workforce find that retention becomes a natural byproduct of these efforts.
A home health care provider’s reputation is not just built through employer initiatives, though—it’s shaped by word-of-mouth and online reviews. Prospective employees often check sites like Glassdoor or Indeed before applying. If an organization is plagued with negative reviews citing poor management, low pay, or lack of support, recruitment efforts will suffer.
The final, and perhaps most crucial, strategy is acknowledging that recruitment and retention efforts must evolve. The workforce landscape is changing, and what worked five years ago may no longer be effective. Home health care organizations must commit to ongoing analysis and refinement of their hiring practices.
By continuously evaluating what is and isn’t working, employers can make strategic adjustments that improve long-term outcomes. This means:
Being open to feedback from current employees
Adjusting recruitment tactics based on data insights
Staying informed about trends in the home health care job market
Recruitment isn’t just about filling positions—it’s about building a stable, committed workforce that can sustain the industry’s rapid growth.
Despite that reality, like many industries, the home health industry needs help finding top talent to fill roles. Home Health Care News and Axxess surveyed home health care professionals and found three-quarters said they’ve had to turn patients and clients away because of staffing shortages.
Additionally (and unfortunately), the home health industry suffers from notoriously high turnover rates, hovering around 64% over the past few years. Home health organizations must be more strategic and meaningful in recruiting (which will help with retention).
Hiring is arguably as competitive as it’s ever been, and for home health professionals, it’s exceptionally challenging. Home health agencies aren’t just competing for applicants with other industry peers, but often larger corporations like Amazon, Walmart, or Chipotle may be able to extend more competitive benefits or opportunities for growth to entry-level workers.
This post will provide tips for combatting home health care recruiting challenges and advice for increasing retention based on best practices, the latest data, and what’s worked for our home health clients.
86% of recruiters agree that recruiting is becoming more like marketing these days. They’re not wrong. You must figure out what your ideal job candidate is looking for in a job and market to them accordingly. It’s a job seeker’s market, and savvy organizations will sell themselves to job seekers just as much as they are expected to sell themselves to companies.
A compelling career page will set your brand apart. You want to give job candidates a taste of what it’s like to work for your organization. You can create a more dynamic career page by:
A job posting is the first impression job seekers have of your organization. Make sure yours stands out.
According to CareerBuilder, 70% of job searches start on Google. This means you’ll want to optimize your job posting with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to ensure Google searchers will find your post. Utilize keywords your job seekers are using to optimize your job postings. This Monster.com article is a useful guide to optimizing job postings.
60% of job seekers utilize job boards in their career search, so you’ll want to post your ads to job boards to reach them. Indeed, Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter are some of the most popular job boards, but there are thousands of job boards available.
We surveyed our users, and 70% utilize organic job postings. Organic posts are a great option, but sponsored posts can take things to the next level. Indeed reports that employers are 4.5x more likely to make a hire when they sponsor a post, while ZipRecruiter finds that sponsored posts receive 11x more applicants than organic posts. It’s also a way to give yourself a competitive edge since most employers aren’t sponsoring jobs.
79% of job seekers use social media as part of their search. Additionally, 58% of U.S. consumers follow brands on social media, and a study by The Aberdeen Group found 73% of millennials found their last job through social media.
According to CareerBuilder, 60% of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity. In comparison, 40% of job seekers will opt not to apply for roles if they can’t access applications via mobile devices. It can’t be repeated enough that today’s job seekers have more options than ever, so they don’t like to feel like they’re jumping through hoops. You want to make the process as easy as possible for them.
We suggest going through your application process. How many steps are there? What are the paint points? What might frustrate you if this were another organization? What barriers could you remove to ensure that your application is inclusive and accessible?
According to data from Glassdoor, 58% of job seekers are looking for jobs on their phones. Mobile job seekers tend to be women, less educated, and mid-career individuals (33-44 years old), who are often target demographics for home healthcare careers. Making your job application as accessible as possible will increase the number of applicants you get.
Nearly half of all healthcare organizations have experienced an increase in the time it takes to fill open positions.
Today’s candidates don’t want to feel like they’re wasting their time. If the interview process is slow and clunky, it could send a message that all operations at your organization will be slow and cumbersome, which employees don't want.
60% of recruiters say they regularly lose candidates before they can schedule interviews because the scheduling takes so long. Find a way to automate and streamline your hiring processes—especially time-consuming administrative tasks—so that recruiting feels quick and efficient for those applying for your roles.
Consider that a job seeker may still be working another career or have personal caretaking duties they can’t drop with short notice. Conducting remote interviews (at least for the first few rounds) shows that you don’t expect a job candidate to rearrange their entire schedule.
Asynchronous video interviews are self-recorded videos candidates can complete on their own timelines. Asynchronous video interviews put every candidate on the same playing field (it’s also an inclusive practice that means you’ll get more candidates to participate in the first round of interviews) when you ask them the same questions in the same cadence.
More than half of job seekers complained that potential employers didn’t update them regarding their application status. One-third of job seekers said they favor heavy communication during the hiring process and indicated that better communication would improve their candidate experience.
Organizations could improve communication by:
Encourage your employees to communicate with their networks. 85% of jobs are filled through networking, and your workforce probably has a valuable network you should encourage them to touch base with when you have open positions.
A competitive compensation and benefits package is one of the most significant factors that can attract and retain high-quality workers. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the median hourly wage for home health aides was $13.00 in 2021, which is lower than many other industries and can make it challenging to attract and retain a top-notch workforce.
To combat this issue, home health organizations can offer competitive salaries, bonuses, and benefits packages that are on par with or better than those provided by other industries or competitors. Widespread benefits include health insurance, PTO, or flexible scheduling.
Last year, hourly pay rates for LPNs in home health agencies increased by nearly 10% from 2021-2022 (a more significant jump than in previous years); unsurprisingly, turnover rates fell.
An excellent way to retain high-quality workers is by investing in their training and professional development. Investing in training and professional development improves caregiver morale, job satisfaction, and confidence and can help your employees move up the corporate ladder. All of these lead to higher retention rates.
Data released by Home Care Pulse indicated that agencies that invest in more training hours also generate considerably more revenue. Those who offered 8 hours of orientation and 12 hours of ongoing training increased their agency’s annual revenue by $6,814 per caregiver.
A positive work environment is crucial for retaining top talent. When workers feel respected, valued, and supported by their employers, they are likelier to stay with an organization.
You can foster a positive work environment by providing regular feedback, opportunities for growth and advancement, and a transparent, supportive atmosphere. Additionally, organizations can implement flexible scheduling, PTO, and other policies that support their workforce.
Employee engagement is essential in attracting and retaining high-quality workers. Workers who feel involved in and invested in their work are more likely to stay with organizations for longer.
Home health organizations can encourage employee engagement by providing opportunities for workers to give feedback and input, hosting team-building events and activities, and encouraging open and honest communication. Home health organizations can help create a positive and supportive work environment that attracts and retains top talent by making employees feel valued and involved.
Many home health employees report not having any opportunities to meet coworkers (they’re simply going from client to client and not meeting one another). Facilitating in-company networking opportunities (through mixers, message boards, professional development, etc.) can help them feel engaged with the company.
The home health care industry is standing at a crossroads. On one hand, we have an unprecedented demand for services as America’s population ages. On the other, we face an alarming labor crisis that threatens the stability of the entire industry.
Addressing this challenge requires more than just hiring more workers—it demands a comprehensive, strategic approach to recruiting and retaining the right people for the job.
The future of home health care depends on it. And for the millions of Americans who rely on these services, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
HiringThing is a modern recruiting and employee onboarding platform as a service that creates seamless talent experiences. Our white label solutions and open API enable HR technology and service providers to offer hiring and onboarding to their clients. Approachable and adaptable, the HiringThing HR platform empowers anyone, anywhere to build their dream team.