What Does It Cost to Hire Aged Care Staff, and How Long Does It Take?

The cost of hiring an aged care worker in Australia is the sum of direct spend, such as advertising, recruiter fees and checks, plus indirect costs like manager time, overtime and agency backfill while the role is open. Time to fill depends on the role, the checks involved, notice periods and, for some candidates, registration or visa steps.

Why is there no single figure for aged care hiring cost?

Published averages rarely match a specific provider. Costs vary with the role, the location, the award or agreement, how many applicants you get and how much of the process you run in-house. A personal care worker role in a metropolitan facility with a steady applicant flow costs less to fill than a night-shift registered nurse role in a regional town. Instead of borrowing someone else's number, build your own estimate from your records. Look at your last few hires for each role, list everything you spent and how long each stage took, and use that as your baseline. Jobs and Skills Australia publishes an Occupation Shortage List that shows which occupations are assessed as in shortage nationally and by state, which helps explain why some roles take longer. Your own data will still be the best guide to planning.

What direct costs should you count?

Direct costs are the items you can attach to an invoice or a payment. They usually include job board and social media advertising, any recruiter fee, screening checks, pre-employment health checks where required, and uniforms or equipment. Include the cost of induction and mandatory training before the person can work unsupervised, such as manual handling, infection control and the Code of Conduct for Aged Care. If you sponsor an overseas worker, add sponsorship and nomination fees, the Skilling Australians Fund levy and migration agent fees, checking current government charges on the Home Affairs website. When you use an agency, ask exactly how the fee is calculated. At CrossNation, the employer fee is 12% of the candidate's annual salary, so you can work it out as soon as the salary is agreed. List every item in one sheet to avoid surprises.

What indirect costs are often missed?

Indirect costs are harder to see but often larger. While a role is vacant, the shifts still need covering, which can mean overtime, higher-cost agency staff or managers stepping onto the floor. Count the hours your managers and HR staff spend writing ads, shortlisting, interviewing, checking references and preparing contracts. Include buddy shifts during orientation, where two people are paid for one role. There is also a cost to quality and continuity. Unfamiliar staff need more supervision, and residents may experience less consistent care. Finally, consider the cost of a hire that does not work out, because a resignation in the first months means repeating the whole process. A useful approach is to calculate a cost per vacant shift and a cost per hire, then compare them. That comparison often shows whether faster hiring or better retention would pay for itself.

What drives time to fill in aged care?

Time to fill is the period from approving a vacancy to the new worker starting. It breaks into stages: preparing the role and ad, attracting applicants, screening and interviewing, making an offer, completing checks, and the candidate's notice period. For nurses, registration status matters, and an overseas-qualified nurse may need to complete an assessment pathway with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia before they can register. For sponsored workers, add the sponsorship, nomination and visa stages, whose processing times change, so check current estimates on the Home Affairs website. Measure each stage separately for your own hires. You will often find that a single stage, such as waiting for interview panels or slow reference checks, causes most of the delay. That is far easier to fix than the labour market itself, and it gives you a clear target for improvement.

How can you reduce cost and time to fill together?

Start with the stages you control. Approve vacancies quickly and keep a ready-to-use ad for each common role. Book interview slots in advance so candidates can be seen within days rather than weeks. Make conditional offers promptly and run checks in parallel where the rules allow. Keep a pool of past applicants who were suitable but missed out, and contact them first when a similar role opens. Improve retention so you need to recruit less often. Review rostering, workload and support for new starters, since these commonly affect early resignations. Plan ahead for predictable demand, such as winter leave periods or a new wing opening. Finally, compare the cost of a vacant shift against the cost of getting help earlier. The point of measuring cost is to make better decisions, not to minimise a single line item at the expense of care.

How should you compare agency, in-house and sponsorship options?

Each option suits different situations. In-house recruitment keeps direct spend low but uses manager time, and it works best when you have strong applicant flow. A recruitment agency adds a fee but can take sourcing and screening off your team, which matters when vacancies are costing you overtime or agency shifts. Sponsorship can open a wider talent pool for planned growth, but it involves government charges, ongoing obligations and longer lead times, and it needs advice from a registered migration agent. Compare the options using your own cost per vacant shift and expected time to fill. CrossNation is a recruitment agency based in Victoria that recruits for employers across Australia. Our fee is 12% of the candidate's annual salary, and placements include a 90-day placement guarantee. We are not a registered migration agent and do not give visa advice.

Where should you start?

Pick one role you hire often and measure it properly for the next few vacancies. Record each stage, every cost and the reasons candidates drop out. That gives you a baseline you can improve. Share the findings with your roster and finance teams, so decisions about overtime, agency use and recruitment budgets are based on the same numbers. Revisit the baseline every few months, because award changes, new regulations and local competition all shift the picture. Once you have figures for one role, repeat the exercise for others, starting with the vacancies that cost you most in overtime. If you want to talk through a current vacancy, see our aged care recruitment service or send a hiring enquiry. Candidates can browse current aged care jobs.

This is general information, not migration advice. Speak to a registered migration agent.