By the end of 2025, there will be 320 million elderly people aged 60 and above in my country, but there will be only 500,000 certified elderly care workers. The shortage of elderly care service personnel is in the millions. Not only are there a serious shortage of front-line caregivers, there is also a shortage of mid-to-high-end management talents, professional rehabilitation therapists, psychological counselors, geriatric planners, and geriatric product R&D talents.
Talking about the pain points of the elderly care industry, Cao Yating, the person in charge of the Tongyun Street Elderly Care Service Center in Tongzhou District, Beijing, operated by Beijing Health Care Group, believes that the first one is the lack of professional nursing staff, and most young people are unwilling to join inclusive elderly care service institutions.
Cao Yating, 32 years old, joined the Beijing Health Care Group in 2015 after graduating from the Elderly Care Service Industry Management major at Beijing Youth University of Political Science. I have been engaged in the elderly care industry for 11 years and have worked as a caregiver and a social worker. In 2016, Beijing began to implement elderly care inns, and she was the webmaster of the first listed inn in the city. Ten years have passed. According to figures released by the Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, by 2025, the city will have built 155 street (township) elderly care service centers and 1,545 community elderly care service stations.
The "Beijing Elderly Care Service Regulations" promulgated on July 1 this year clearly proposes to build a three-level elderly care service network covering the whole city to deliver inclusive elderly care services to the doorstep. Elderly care service centers and service stations are the second and third levels, while the first level is the district-level elderly care service guidance center.
"The supply of young talents suitable for the industry is insufficient, and social perceptions are biased. They think they are serving others, and parents do not want their children to enter nursing homes. In addition, wages are not high, and inclusive nursing institutions have small profit margins, which cannot support high wages." Cao Yating said.
According to Cao Yating, there were nearly 1,000 operators in Beijing in 2016 when there were the most number of post stations. Now a large number of operators have withdrawn, mainly due to factors such as the elderly’s insufficient spending power, which has led to the inability to achieve breakeven. Based on the pension level of most elderly people, without the support of their children, they cannot afford the monthly care service fee of about 7,000 yuan. They can only choose cheaper services such as meal assistance and bathing assistance and various free cultural activities for the elderly.
Tongyun Subdistrict Elderly Care Service Center is constructed according to the standard of “three districts and two halls”. The “three areas” refer to the daycare service area, the integrated medical and nursing care area and the comprehensive service area, while the “two halls” refer to the community canteen and the school for the elderly. The center is staffed with more than 30 deans, deans, medical staff, social workers, chefs, etc., serving approximately 8,800 elderly people with an average age of 70 in the Tongyun Subdistrict area. The disabled, dementia, elderly, and orphaned groups that the government focuses on are basically covered.
Chang Qingqing, a 36-year-old nursing supervisor from Shaanxi, is responsible for nursing staff training, guidance, and shift scheduling. She told reporters that most of the more than 10 caregivers she manages come from rural areas outside the country and are mostly around 50 years old. On average, one person has to take care of 4 elderly people. In terms of remuneration, food and accommodation are included, and the monthly salary is 5,000 to 6,000 yuan.
"Many people find it hard work, low income, and unseemly." Some caregivers don't even dare to tell their relatives and friends that they work in a nursing home, fearing that they will be looked down upon.
Migrant work, rural household registration, older age, and low academic qualifications are common labels for nursing staff in inclusive elderly care institutions in Beijing. Mentougou Dongxinfang Street Elderly Care Service Center is also operated by Beijing Health Care Group. It will start operations in September 2024. Currently, there are more than 20 elderly people staying and 5 nursing staff. These caregivers are all villagers in their 50s. They often take leave during busy farming seasons, and some even resign due to family matters.
Li Xinyue, the person in charge of the center, told reporters that high employee mobility is not conducive to the normal operation of the service center. For this reason, the company strives to strengthen humanistic care for employees and enhance the sense of team belonging.
Before these employees take up their posts, they need to participate in 7 days of unified training and complete a 48-hour practical assessment in the hospital. On the wall of the center, there are employee disciplinary regulations "Five Cares, Eight Knows, and Nine Don'ts". These strict disciplines seem to imply that their vocational training and professional ethics education need to be greatly strengthened.
Zhang Ying, head of the comprehensive affairs department of Beijing Health Care Group, told reporters that the group has a wide range of businesses, and vocational training and residential care for the elderly have the greatest income-generating potential. In January 2025, the Group's vocational training school for the elderly officially launched its business. In 2025, it trained more than 5,700 people in one year, mainly in the certification of elderly care workers and the assessment of the elderly's abilities. It is currently expanding into long-term care, elderly care planning and other directions. He also said that training is an urgent need for the industry. After the long-term care insurance is implemented, the demand for nursing staff will increase significantly. If employment resources across the country are integrated, good social and economic benefits can be created.
In March 2026, the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment of a Long-term Care Insurance System", which aims to raise funds through everyone's insurance to provide basic daily care and medical care for insured persons who have lost their ability to move normally, and to alleviate the dilemma of "one person is disabled and the whole family is unbalanced". The "Beijing Elderly Care Services Regulations" promulgated in July this year also pay attention to talent training, requiring deepening the integration of industry and education, school-enterprise cooperation, and enhancing the professional attractiveness of elderly care services.
In July last year, at the Beijing Four Seasons Youth Forum on the Development of the Elderly Care Industry, jointly sponsored by the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau and Jingneng Group, Dai Xianquan, Secretary of the Beijing Health Care Party Committee and Chairman of Jingneng Group, made a speech and pointed out that the shortage of talents in elderly care services has become a core pain point under the "silver wave". Single skills limited to life care and basic nursing are no longer enough. There is an urgent need for innovative talents with medical care, psychological counseling, rehabilitation assessment, elderly care planning, and intelligent technology application capabilities.
Ban Yue Tan reporter: Zhou Shengping
