The Experiences of Workers Hired Under Consumer Direction in ...

ecause many held other jobs, or because they had to provide more hours than they were beingpaid for as part of their family responsibility for the consumers’ overall welfare.Finally, directly hired workers usually had to resolve one work-related issue that agencyworkers presumably were not responsible for: directly hired workers often have to find backupcare when they cannot come to work. Fifty-three percent of the directly hired workers in thesample were responsible for obtaining backup care, and 19 percent reported having at least somedifficulty arranging for it. (We did not ask agency workers this question, as we assumed thatagency workers would not be responsible for providing their own backup care.)7. Worker Well-beingMost workers experienced little physical strain as a result of their jobs, and the amount ofsuch strain reported by workers in the two groups was similar. About two-thirds of both directlyhired workers and agency workers reported little or no physical strain; conversely, only15 percent of agency workers and 17 percent of directly hired workers reported a great deal ofphysical strain (Table 7). Few were physically hurt on the job, although directly hired workerswere more likely than agency workers to be injured as a result of caring for the sample member(4 percent and 1 percent, respectively). The directly hired workers’ lack of personal care trainingmight have contributed to their higher rate of on-the-job injury. In addition, directly hiredworkers might have been more likely to be injured while caring for their client simply becausethey spent so much more time delivering that care. If we take into account the number of hoursof work provided (by weighting the observations on workers by the total number of hours of carethey provided to the sample member), directly hired workers were slightly (although notsignificantly) less likely than agency workers to be injured.26