Linda Pantko is one of many employees who work in senior care. She knows the money isn’t great – she says it helps that her husband “does pretty well” – but she says there are more important reasons for doing the job.

“In Europe there is a strong culture of taking care of parents as they get older but in the United States people work so much that they don’t always have the time to take care of their mom and dad,” says Pantko, who was born in Poland and moved to the United States with her family in 1978. “After talking to some friends who were doing jobs as home healthcare aides, I realized that that was something I would enjoy. My parents are both deceased and most of my family is still back in Poland so in some ways I feel like it is part of my responsibility to help with older people.”

Pantko worked for two different agencies doing home care and also with an assisted living facility in Chicago. “I enjoy the facility work more because you can interact with the residents and with other aides and nurses,” she says. “When you provide services at home, you’re the only person there and you can feel a little bit of loneliness for your senior, feeling what they feel. In a home, there are always activities and there are always people coming and going. I like that aspect of it much more.”

Pantko is one of many Americans working in senior care, a constantly growing field of healthcare employment. “I don’t know if there is a ceiling yet to senior care,” says Jonathan Baker, a job analyst who worked for the U.S. Department of Labor. “The country’s population will continue to age. It is an unstoppable trend.”

The market for senior caregivers is projected to grow through at least 2032, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 684,600 openings for home health and personal care aides are projected each year, on average, over the decade. Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire, according to the BLS.

The median annual wage for home health and personal care aides was $33,530 in May 2023. Baker says although wages for aides has risen over the past few years, he realizes for many, the money is still not enough. “If providers and agencies have to compete for employees, that would help improve compensation,” he says.

Still, as Pantko believes, some of the benefits of senior care go beyond the paycheck. “I really do enjoy working with older people,” she says.

In both assisted-living facilities and personal residences, a need exists for various health care professionals, including home health aides, nurses, physical therapists, physicians and others.

Health care workers who interact with seniors can provide a variety of services, including administering medications, checking a patient’s vital signs, like pulse rate and temperature, helping with daily exercises, maintaining a patient’s surroundings, helping patients move from their beds to other areas of the house and washing and dressing patients each day.

Tribune News Service