Child Care Sector Jobs See Small Uptick

BERKELEY, CA —Child care sector employment sees a small uptick after adding 4,900 jobs in October (and accounting for previous September estimates being adjusted upwards). 

Nonetheless, employment is 8.4% below what it was in February 2020, and is hovering around the same rates as this summer, according to analysis by the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE). Today’s release is based on the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs report.

Child care job numbers from selected states and metro areas continue to illustrate the instability of the sector month-to-month. Employment in many places shows a sharp increase from last month's report. As the reports for states and locales are one month behind the national report, these spikes in September may be driven by programs that operate on a school year schedule or increase staffing during the school year. 

With the exception of California, child care employment numbers for the locations displayed below remain lower than their post-pandemic highs. Notably, Texas continues on a downward trend, with job levels nearly 13% below that they were in February 2020 and 5.45% lower than they were this past May 2022.

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.