AMBER isn’t “just a good idea”, AMBER is a critical part of a safe, loving, care-plan for Texas Seniors and Elders. If you have questions about our medical alert system, please call me at (512) 779-4907 or email ahouse@ilstexas.com.
Medical Alert Systems brings peace of mind to working families.. knowing their elder loved one living in Austin, Georgetown, San Antonio, Temple Texas is safe.
Not everyone is able to manage the often conflicting demands of working and caregiving. The “MetLife Juggling Act Study,” reported by the MetLife Mature Market Institute in 1999, found that 16 percent of employees quit their jobs and 13 percent retired early because they could not manage full-time work along with the demands of caring for children, spouses and parents.
The study found that of 950 working caregivers, the average loss per person was an estimated $566,500 in wages, $67,000 in pension benefits and $25,500 in Social Security benefits – a lifetime loss of $659,000. The reasons cited were reduced work hours and missed promotions, transfers or training opportunities.
While taking a toll on workers, elder care problems also hurt business. The MetLife report estimated that U.S. companies lose $11 billion to $29 billion a year in reduced productivity. Gerontologist Sandra Timmermann says a new report due out soon will reveal the loss is much greater.
“This next decade is bound to be the elder care decade,” says Timmermann. “People are working, they live far away from their parents, there are fewer siblings, and they don’t have support systems in place.”
Despite the growing number of workers with caregiving responsibilities, only about one in four U.S. businesses offers employees elder care support services and benefits such as flexible hours and telecommuting, according to the Society for Human Resources Management in Alexandria, Va. And that hasn’t changed in a decade, says Donna Wagner, director of gerontology at Towson University in Maryland. “Only the big companies offer this, and the majority of the American work force doesn’t work for big companies, so you’re touching very few lives when it comes to this issue.”
Visit us tomorrow on more news about working families caring for elders at a distance.
