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A Successful Economy Depends on Affordable Childcare
In the last six months, the COVID-19 public health crisis has changed how we conduct business in nearly every industry. Overnight, employers had to shift operations to keep employees safe and healthy. The onset of COVID-19 has spurred 79 percent of employers to move a significant part of the workforce to remote work. But with these changes, many working parents must face the reality of balancing full-time childcare and full-time employment.
“O ne of the most important things in a community, pandemic or not, is providing a safe and nurturing space for children, and frontline childcare providers deserve a lot of recognition,” said Kyle Cronk, President of the South Sound YMCA. “We were lucky here that as soon as schools shut down in March, we were able to pivot and help essential workers, healthcare workers and emergency responders who needed childcare. Our childcare frontline workers are incredibly valuable, and it’s not possible to have a successful economy without accessible and affordable childcare.”
Access to childcare was already a challenge before the pandemic, as highquality childcare often has significant by Doria Maselli recruitment and retention costs for employers. As childcare programs have closed or are operating at limited capacity, the impact of this lack of childcare options on employers is even more significant. In the fall of 2019, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation conducted a series of surveys, which led to the creation of four reports, referred to as Untapped Potential, to better understand how childcare challenges affect parents’ participation in the workforce, affect employers’ ability to recruit and retain skilled workers and impact state economies.
This study found that childcare challenges, such as breakdowns in care, affordability or lack of access, contribute to parents postponing school and training programs, forgoing promotions because of schedule changes and sometimes leaving the workforce altogether. In the four states studied, these childcare issues resulted from $479 million to $3.47 billion in estimated
– Kyle Cronk, President, South Sound YMCA annual losses for their economies, with specific direct and indirect impact on employers in those states.
“At the YMCA, we went from providing childcare to 1,000 families pre-COVID-19 to just a little over 200 families during March through June, a volume not even a third of what it was previously,” said Cronk.
