Is child care a workforce barrier?
While a growing number of employees are returning to the workplace, health officials continue to vaccinate about 800 to 1,000 Delawareans each workday. Our numbers look good compared to other places in the country, and continued vaccination progress is encouraging. However, some employees with child care needs are struggling to find care. Some child care providers have closed or lost staff during the pandemic. Others are fully staffed, but the “teacher-to-child” ratio or physical site of the center make it impossible to take in more kids.
We anticipate access to quality and affordable child care to become a growing issue for our member companies in the coming months if not already.
Are your employees vocalizing this problem? If yes, we would like to know.
Child care is essential infrastructure to our state. But employers don’t want to be in the child care business, and that is perfectly logical because there are legal, staffing, insurance, and other challenging considerations. However, coming out of the pandemic gives us an opportunity to think differently about these services and the potential to create an “employee benefit” of sorts. What if an employer had excess space that could be completely separated from the workplace, remodeled, and sublet to a child care provider? What if the employer’s staff had most of the participant capacity set aside for them before other participant spaces were open to the public? In addition to the convenience factor for employees, perhaps lower overhead costs could allow the provider to pay its staff a higher wage and tackle one of the toughest challenges facing this industry—quality of care.
The Philadelphia and Boston Federal Reserve Banks, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Rodel, Delaware Office of Early Learning, and many others are using this moment to rethink this important business sector. Please let us know if this is an issue for you, your employees, and any thoughts you might have about this topic by submitting your comments
here.
