Career Trends: Home Health and Personal Care Aides

Personal care aides help clients with self-care and everyday tasks. They also provide social supports and assistance that enable clients to participate in their communities.

Personal care aides held about 1.8 million jobs in 2014. Most personal care aides work in clients’ homes, small group homes, or larger care communities.

Most personal care aides are trained on the job. There are no formal education requirements for personal care aides, but most aides have a high school diploma.

Employment of personal care aides is projected to grow 26 percent from 2014 to 2024, much faster than the average for all occupations. As the baby-boom population ages, there will be an increase in the number of clients requiring assistance.

This occupation supported 1,190,600 jobs in 2012 and 1,768,400 jobs in 2014, reflecting an increase of 48.5%. In 2012, this occupation was projected to increase by 48.8% in 2022 to 1,771,400 jobs. As of 2014, to keep pace with prediction, the expected number of jobs was 1,306,700, compared with an observed value of 1,768,400, 35.3% higher than expected. This indicates current employment trends are much better than the 2012 trend within this occupation. In 2014, this occupation was projected to increase by 38.5% in 2024 to 2,226,500 jobs. Linear extrapolation of the 2012 projection for 2022 results in an expected number of 1,887,500 jobs for 2024, 15.2% lower than the 2014 projection for 2024. This indicates expectations for future employment trends are much better than the 2012 trend within this occupation.