Shortage of workers at childcare centers 'at a hyper-crisis point' - Boston Business Journal
By Grant Welker
Labor shortages at restaurants, retail and manufacturers have been well-documented, as businesses reopen but fewer workers are available to keep places adequately staffed.
Then there are childcare centers.
For anyone who isn’t the parent of a preschooler, labor shortages at day care centers and similar facilities aren't easily noticed. But as more office workers return to the workplace, childcare center staffing and other factors limiting capacity is increasingly a problem for working parents.
“The workforce crisis has been building and was a crisis before the pandemic hit,” said Tom Weber, the executive director of the Massachusetts Business Coalition for Early Childhood Education. “Now it’s at a hyper-crisis point.”
Many childcare centers closed early in the pandemic, spurring many longtime childcare providers to retire or leave the business, according to industry leaders. Now, fewer people than ever are interested in taking their place.
Childcare center leaders say teachers are too easily burned out, and fewer are attracted to the industry in the first place because of low wages. That's leaving centers with lower capacity just as parents are returning to the job market.
“What Covid has shown us is that it was always problematic,” said Lauren Birchfield Kennedy, the co-president and chief strategy officer at Neighborhood Villages, a Boston-area advocacy group that also provides some programs in the region.