Child care job numbers increased by 1,600 in July, below the average monthly gain of 2,600 over the prior 12 months.
Employment growth has slowed in recent months, following larger job gains in 2022 and 2023.
Whether this signals a fundamental shift in trend is yet to be determined, and CSCCE will continue to monitor data.
Figure 1
190,400
Child care jobs added during the ARPA funding distribution period
21.7%
Percentage increase in child care jobs since April 2021,
when ARPA distribution began
Across the selected states and metro areas we track, child care employment continues to fluctuate. While New Jersey and New York City saw increases of nearly 2% from the previous month, California and Texas experienced significant drops of 2.24% and 1.4%, respectively.
Figure 2
Table 1
Details on the data source
- Data Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024). Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey.
- Current month’s jobs numbers are a preliminary estimate by BLS. Our figures include BLS adjustments to previous months and thus may differ from earlier Jobs Tracker Figures. These estimates include employees in the “child day care services” industry, which includes child care, Head Start, preschool and school-age care programs. The estimates include employees only and do not include self-employed workers, such as owners of home-based child care figures published by CSCCE.
- This employment data cannot be disaggregated by education, race/ethnicity, role, setting, or funding stream.
- For the “child day care services” industry, estimates for a small number of states and cities are available, a selection of which are included here. The availability of state- or city-level estimates varies by industry, and the most recent month’s jobs numbers are a preliminary estimate by BLS. These data are released by BLS later in the month than national.
