The care economy employs nearly 40,000 Tasmanians supported by an additional 40,000 volunteers. The next biggest economy in Tasmania is retail with some 14,000 employees.

It's our biggest economy in Tasmania, the fastest growing, employing more regional Tasmanians than any other economy. Caregiving is the job most in demand now and into the foreseeable future.

Some 40 per cent of jobs in emerging professions (such as data and artificial intelligence) are projected to be in the caring economy.

But partly because care work is so broad, often unpaid, often precarious, often relying on volunteers and the workforce most often women, we tend not to think about its importance as the biggest economy across Tasmania but rather as a multitude of industries. This devalues the essence of caring as the core of all these industries. It also misses the big challenges of the caring economy.

The first challenge is to have a unified voice. Unlike many other economies such as tourism that usually speak with one voice, the fragmented nature of the care economy means it is often without a common voice.

Rather there are multiple industry voices often with different agendas.

Our second big challenge is the demographics of Tasmania where on the one hand the demand for care workers is exponentially increasing, but we have less workers to draw on as we age - the so-called dependency gap.

Tasmania has the fastest growing older population in Tasmania where by 2050 the majority of Tasmanians will be over 60. We need another 20,000 care economy workers by 2040 to meet increasing demand and replace the rapidly ageing workforce.

Rather than seeing this as a problem we should be looking at better ways for older people to support themselves and how to support a broader range of caregiving capacity in each community.

Norway for example has incentives for men to take on parental caring roles via a 'Daddy Quota' system. Some 90 per cent of eligible men have signed up.

Germany has a focus on supporting carers' health and wellbeing in recognition that caring is a high stress role, both physically and mentally, and that both paid and unpaid workers need substantially more support, including time out.

Related to our second challenge a third challenge is to increase the mobility and adaptive capacity of work in the caring economy. COVID showed workers need to be able to pivot within and between industries (for example between aged care and hospitality) often at relatively short notice.

An adaptive care economy workforce enables people to also move more readily between public, private and community organisations.

It is often simple barriers that prevent such mobility, for example not being able to carry leave over or not having accreditation that is transferable

But we do need to be careful about risks of more mobile workforces - sometimes called the 'uberisation' of the care economy where low paid workers (mainly women) rush from precarious job to precarious job.

Our fourth challenge is to better care for our carers.

Some 57 per cent of carers feel they have suffered physical and/or mental health issues from caring but less than half take any action (often because they are too busy caring).

Others countries are making 'citizen payments' to remunerate volunteers and encourage more people into caring roles.

These are all complex and contested ideas; if you want to fill in an hour at the local just suggest that all volunteers should be paid.

The care economy relies heavily on volunteers and as a recent report from Volunteering Tasmania highlighted, the numbers of volunteers are in decline. Not only that they are much older than the population profile.

Carers' leave is still in its infancy in Australia, especially in the private sector, but internationally is a growing movement, linked to increased job satisfaction and productivity. Non-transferable parental leave (equal paid amounts for each parent) helps.

A fifth challenge is to sort out the role of technology into the future. New technology-based care models such as telehealth are emerging, but often we overlook the consequences of further reducing face-to-face human interactions.

If we are going to put our biggest economy on a more solid footing these challenges need to be addressed.

Underneath all of the debates is the simmering issue of how much as a society we value caring and our willingness to put that debate front and centre in Tasmania rather than on the margins.

A unified voice for the care economy in Tasmania would be a powerful force.