The head of British care agency is flying to New Zealand to stage a recruitment drive because she can't find enough people to work as carers in the UK.
Camilla Miles, managing director of Corinium Care, in Gloucestershire, is on her way to New Zealand to find carers for the elderly and disabled, a local newspaper, The Forester, reported.
Despite the economic downturn and rising unemployment, she has struggled to recruit staff in the UK.
The company, based in Nailsworth, near Stroud, has more than 700 registered carers from Britain and recruitment offices in Zimbabwe and South Africa, but the trip to New Zealand is a first.
"Our business has quadrupled in the past 10 years and our search for carers has been relentless," said Ms Miles, who founded Corinium Care in 1995.
"Since the credit crunch and the economic downturn in this country, we have had more applications from the UK, mostly from people who have been made redundant. But the demand for our services outstrip the supply of people."
The agency, one of the biggest in the UK, provides 24-hour care for elderly and disabled people in their own homes.
Almost 40 percent of their clients have a degree of dementia, and their families opt for one-to-one care at home, rather than a nursing home.
"Another factor affecting our business is that families are choosing to keep their elderly relatives at home because it's not a good time to sell property," she said.
