Community support workers among NZ's lowest paid

Checkpoint

They are among New Zealand's lowest paid employees. The wages of home and community support workers, who look after the country's elderly, typically max out about $29 an hour. They also use their own vehicles to travel between jobs and, while they're reimbursed for that, it's at an amount significantly less than IRD recommends for personal vehicle use. The issue was part of a pay equity claim by the female dominated workforce, who consider themselves underpaid in comparison to those dominated by men. That's now off the table after the government changed the law last month. Jimmy Ellingham reports.