BackgroundThe increasingly aging population in current China has encouraged the emergence of the diversified and multi-level elderly care service industry, and the demand for high-quality elderly life with the help of elderly caregivers continues to grow.MethodsBased on the existing questionnaire data, this article explores the influencing factors of the treatment level of care staff, and explores their future development prospects.ResultsThe results show that whether they have participated in relevant vocational skills competitions, whether they have worked overtime, whether they have overtime wages, and their monthly income have significant effects on their satisfaction of treatment levels. Elderly care workers who have participated in skills competitions are more satisfied about their salary. In addition, workers who rarely and occasionally work overtime are more satisfied compared with those who have never worked overtime; Caregivers with a monthly income of 5,000–6,999 yuan are more satisfied with their salary and treatment than those with below 3,000 yuan.ConclusionTherefore, in order to better match the supply and demand of care workers, we should provide formal training and skill competitions for them, appropriately increase their salary level and reasonably arrange their working hours, so as to attract more professional talents into elderly care industry.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-023-04084-w.