(Image courtesy HSU)
NDS Census finds a system ‘Entrenched in Crisis’
Australia’s disability workforce is buckling: entrenched turnover and casualisation, fuelled by an unsustainable pricing model, threaten the quality and continuity of NDIS supports.
The numbers are brutal. Staff turnover in the disability sector remains alarmingly high - 26 percent among casuals, 16 percent among permanent staff - and it costs providers an estimated $32–$50 million annually. And that’s just to replace those walking out the door.
A Workforce Census released by National Disability Services shows this isn’t just about normal staffing churn.
The report displays a system underpinned by a pricing model that starves providers of the resources they need to invest in people.
Organisations can’t offer fair pay, training, or wellbeing support because they’re boxed in by NDIS price caps. The result? A revolving door of broken workers and lost skills.
Permanent full-time roles have dropped sharply from 30 to 21 percent, undoing last year’s progress and pushing providers back into casualisation. Organisations are forced into survival strategies to manage cash flow: the result is instability.
NDS CEO Michael Perusco is blunt: “The current pricing model undermines the sustainability of the workforce, limits providers’ ability to meet NDIS objectives, and ultimately impacts the lives of Australians with disability.”
On the ground, the strain shows. At Gateways Support Services, turnover is “anticipated” as part of the business. Chief People Officer Georgia Jackson says program leaders plug staffing gaps themselves and become “burned out” in the process. The organisation invests heavily in onboarding, but each departure adds to cost and pressure.
Career change and workload are now leading reasons for exit, signalling many leave the sector for good. The Census makes clear workforce churn won’t just continue; it will intensify.
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NDS finds $50 Million Lost to Staff Churn
A sweeping survey of over 500 disability support workers conducted by the Health Services Union revealed that 62 percent are experiencing burnout, and 63 percent have considered leaving work within the last 12 months.
But if the NDS 2025 Census paints a stark picture of a sector caught in a vicious cycle, the pain for individual workers is just as bad. Turnover and casualisation are now entrenched, structural features of the system.
Thousands exit the sector each year, and this costing providers millions in onboarding. Beyond the dollars, the disruption is profound.
At the same time, the workforce is shifting from stability to insecurity. The HSU points to the key findings of the report.
KEY FINDINGS FROM SURVEY
Care quality hit: 71% say workforce shortages have already impacted their ability to provide the care they’d want for a loved one (regularly or occasionally). If you include those worried it could happen, that’s 91%.
Workers heading for the exits: 55% have considered leaving in the last 12 months. Broadly, 91% have at least “thought about it occasionally.”
Short-staffed care: 49% say they often/always lack enough staff for safe, quality care; 86% say it happens at least sometimes.
Pay doesn’t match the job: 74% say current pay does not reflect the skill, responsibility and emotional labour required.
Burnout is endemic: 62% report burnout/stress frequently or all the time; 95% at least sometimes.
System under-resourced: 72% say the workforce is not large and stable enough to meet needs now and into the future.
Wage-cut risk real: 86% are concerned wages could be cut or pushed back to award rates without government action.
Top reasons for wanting to leave (multi-select): Emotional toll/burnout (62%), unsafe or stressful conditions (55%), lack of respect for the profession (45%), low pay (44%), unmanageable workload (37%).
Health Services Union
For people with disability this means the constant loss of trusted support workers and fractured service delivery.
This is no idle threat.
These aren’t discrete challenges; they reinforce one another. Chronic understaffing fuels burnout; burnout drives turnover; turnover exacerbates understaffing. Without immediate, targeted intervention in pay, conditions, staffing levels, supervision and support, both union and business warns this vicious cycle will deepen.
Turnout is no longer a side‑effect - it’s the workplace climate. Burnout and mass attrition are degrading service quality with 71 percent of workers say staffing shortages are already harming care.
The trend to casualisation reflects desperation, not preference. Providers are pushed to balance books under rigid NDIS pricing rules. Workers, too, opt for casual hours to cope with cost-of-living pressures.
Turnover is not just a side‑effect - it’s the workplace climate.
Hence Perusco’s warning pricing reform is now urgent. He says the current structure “undermines the sustainability of the workforce” by preventing providers from investing in training, support, and fair pay. That failure, he says, directly harms the lives of Australians with disability.
A case study from Gateways Support Services shows the cost at ground level. With a turnover rate of 16 percent, the organisation spends heavily on induction, only to lose staff soon after. Leaders are forced to fill the gaps themselves, leaving them “completely burned out.”
The biggest reasons for exits are a desire for career change and the intensity of the workload. This suggests the sector isn’t just losing workers, it’s losing them permanently.
Both business and union insist that unless pricing and retention are fixed together, the churn will intensify.
This will strike at the sustainability of the very system itself.