Why You Can’t Find Child Care: 100,000 Workers Are Missing
Where did they go? To better-paying jobs stocking shelves, cleaning offices or doing anything that pays more than $15 an hour.
Dana Goldstein

Carolina Reyes was surprised when she heard that an assistant teacher at her child-care center in suburban Maryland was quitting for a job cleaning high school classrooms. The hours — 6 p.m. to midnight — seemed crummy. And the work hardly seemed more satisfying.

But then Ms. Reyes, who owns the center, heard about the salary — $24 per hour, compared with the $15 she was able to offer.

The worker was only one of several Ms. Reyes lost recently — part of a national exodus from the child-care profession. The shortage is contributing to a crisis for parents, as child-care providers close their doors or limit enrollment in response to a labor market in which they cannot compete.

There are 100,000 fewer child-care workers than there were before the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even as private-sector employment fully rebounded over the summer from the job losses caused by Covid-19, the child care sector shrank and was ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/us/c ... rtage.html

Economics beats politics again..... and again.... and again.

Economics beats politics again..... and again.... and again.

Childcare jobs have always paid crummy. A large number of people who take these jobs are ones who have pre-school kids and they many times get daycare free or at a steep discount. When that is taken into account, their pay was not that bad.

True.

But as for your second point, I'm not sure that's true - a lot of people working in the field have degrees in Early Childhood Education.

You only need the degree at the Director level in most places. The bulk of the staff are at the teacher aide level and around here, they are often welfare recipients who are required to work or young people who are still pondering their career options.

You only need the degree at the Director level in most places. The bulk of the staff are at the teacher aide level and around here, they are often welfare recipients who are required to work or young people who are still pondering their career options.

As queen said, that's usually only required for directors. I am also talking about childcare when I was raising young ones. A long time ago. There were many, many small daycares run in homes and probably no one with a degree. I think that still applies in small communities. I considered this at one time...then I remembered how screaming kids irritated me, lol. Yes, even my own.