EFFORTS to attract people to the disability support workforce need to be ramped up ahead of the full roll-out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, says services chief Ken Baker.
An estimated 70,000 people work in the field of disability care in Australia.
The National Disability Services (NDS) chief executive said the workforce will have to double to roughly 140,000 by 2018/19 when the NDIS, recently renamed DisabilityCare Australia, is rolled out nationally.
One challenge is competing for workers from other understaffed industries such as aged care and child care, Mr Baker said.
"People think about disability work as just doing fairly menial work," he told AAP.
"In reality it's about helping people with severe disabilities achieve goals."
WA and Queensland in particular have shortages of disability workers.
Mr Baker hopes two NSW recruitment programs, one targeting career changers, and the other school leavers, can be expanded across the country.
The ProjectABLE program holds workshops with year 10 and 11 high school students to raise awareness about career opportunities in the disability sector.
These include support worker roles, group home managers, speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy roles.
Mr Baker said low pay rates in the sector are slowly improving following last year's workplace tribunal decision to award community sector workers a pay raise.
"People don't principally work in the sector for money, it's more about making a difference to people's lives."
Carer roles offer a lot of flexibility and could suit parents juggling work and family life, he said.
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