BERKELEY, CA —Child care sector jobs are losing ground. With 2,000 jobs lost in September, and previous August estimates revised downward, all of the gains made over the summer have been wiped out, according to analysis by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) at UC Berkeley.
Child care employment has now dropped to 9.7% below what it was in February 2020, with 102,400 jobs lost. Today’s release is based on the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report.
-102,400k
Child care jobs lost since Feb 2020
90.3%
Percentage of child care jobs today compared to Feb 2020
Child care job numbers from selected states and metro areas illustrate the instability of the sector month-to-month. Following sharp drops from the previous month, areas like New York have continued to see a decline, while others like New Jersey and Texas show small gains.
Yet for many communities, the gains that were reported at the start of this summer have been wiped out. For example, despite a small increase, job levels in New Jersey (which were nearly at pre-pandemic job levels in June), are now 7.4% below what they were in February 2020. Job levels in Massachusetts, which had been slowly gaining ground after the state lost more than half of its child care jobs, are now 23.5% below pre-pandemic levels.
Check back with us or revisit the site page each month for the updates.
*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 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.
- 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.
- This employment data cannot be disaggregated by education, race/ethnicity, role, setting, or funding stream.