Child-care providers are facing a staffing crisis, forcing some to close with little notice to parents - Boston Globe
By Stephanie Ebbert
Desperate to hire child-care workers during the pandemic, Nurtury Early Education has raised its hourly rate, hired a recruiter, and offered $1,000 signing bonuses — $500 up front and $500 after six months on the job.
It hasn’t been enough. Its pool of candidates has become so thin that Nurtury, the oldest child-care agency in New England, is closing one of its five centers in Greater Boston. Teachers and children from the South End location are moving into the remaining facilities, where nine classrooms sit dark and empty from the upheaval of the past 17 months.
“This is not a financial crisis. This is not an enrollment crisis. This is a staffing crisis,” said Laura Perille, Nurtury’s chief executive. “There are simply not enough available workers to maintain our classrooms.”
Welcome to the next phase of the child-care crisis: Even if a center has space for your child, it may not have a teacher to care for her. Despite loosened pandemic restrictions and heightened demand from parents eager to return to the workplace, child-care directors say they can’t find enough certified employees to fully staff their centers, part of a hiring shortage felt across the US economy.
“I have never seen anything like this,” said Bernadette Davidson, who has worked in early education for 50 years and now directs child-care services at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. “I can’t hire. I get resumes from people with no background in education. I even had a Buddhist monk.”