BERKELEY, CA —Child care sector employment continues to inch upward as 4,500 jobs were added in February (and after accounting for the previous January estimates being adjusted downwards). Yet the sector’s employment today remains 5.7% below what it was in February 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic, according to analysis by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley.
Today’s release is based on the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report.
-59,800
Child care jobs lost since Feb 2020
94.3%
Percentage of child care jobs today compared to Feb 2020
Child care job numbers from selected states and metro areas will be updated on the CSCCE website
after BLS releases them on March 17th.
*More details on the data source:
- Data Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2022). 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 toprevious months and thus may differ from earlier Jobs Tracker Figures. These estimates include employees inthe “child day care services” industry, which includes child care, Head Start, preschool and school-age careprograms. The estimates include employees only and do not include self-employed workers, such as owners ofhome-based child care figures published by CSCCE.
- These estimates include employees in the “child day care services” industry, which includes child care, HeadStart, 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.
- This employment data cannot be disaggregated by education, race/ethnicity, role, setting, or funding stream.