After more than a decade of steady growth, human services employment in Massachusetts declined by 10 percent between 2016 and 2020, contributing to a growing workforce crisis in the human services sector and a lack of available services for state residents, according to a new report from The Human Services Providers Charitable Foundation, Inc. (HSPCF) and the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute.
The joint report — Essential or Not? The Critical Need for Human Services Workers — was released at a forum hosted by The Providers’ Council on May 3. The key findings included:
- While employment declined 10 percent between 2016 and 2020, establishments grew by more than 10 percent over that same time period, further illustrating difficulty filling open positions.
- A survey of 21 Providers’ Council board members showed that they had nearly 13,000 full-time, part-time and per diem client facing positions. Of those, nearly 3,000 client facing positions were vacant in November 2022.
- The median income of human services workers is just $34,273 – $15,000 less than the median income for the state overall, which comes in at $49,750.
- More than 1 in 6 human services workers are classified as low-income, defined as earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
- Workforce challenges in the human services sector also demonstrate equity challenges, as women and people of color are significantly represented in the human services workforce, particularly within the lowest paying positions.
- Nearly 80 percent of the human services workforce is comprised of women, compared to 43 percent in all other industries.
- Nearly 36 percent are people of color, compared to 25 percent in all other industries.
HSPCF and the Providers’ Council have previously published six reports with the Donahue Institute dating back to 2006. Nearly 20 years later, the workforce crisis in the human services sector has only worsened, jeopardizing the delivery of high-quality human services to hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents and forcing long waiting lists or gaps in care.
“Community-based human services workers truly are the Commonwealth’s ‘other first responders’,” said Providers’ Council President and CEO Michael Weekes. “Yet because state rates of reimbursement are not supporting livable wages in the human services sector, the workforce crisis is continuing and our most vulnerable neighbors are not receiving the critical care they so desperately need.”
For more information, please email Bill Yelenak.