Budget 2022: Wait lists tipped to grow after childcare pay plea falls on deaf ears

Longer waiting lists for daycare are on the cards as centres struggle to fill staff shortages during the pandemic.

Educator Isobel Toh with, from left, Samneet, Xander and Ella at Goodstart Early Learning Centre in North Sydney. Picture: Nikki Short

Short-staffed daycare centres have warned of longer waiting lists after the number of carer vacancies doubled during the pandemic.

Goodstart Early Learning, the nation’s biggest childcare provider, predicted worsening staff shortages as fewer Australians graduate from childcare training courses.

“There is a workforce crisis across early learning and childcare with vacancies running at double pre-pandemic levels, and centres struggling to find enough educators to meet demand from families,’’ Goodstart head of advocacy John Cherry said. “It is disappointing that the budget had nothing to say on addressing the low wages of early childhood educators who are delivering a service absolutely ­essential for the rest of Australia to get back to work.

“It means that in some centres, parents will be languishing on waiting lists because we haven’t got enough educators (to care for all children who need to enrol).’’

Childcare organisations including Goodstart have been lobbying the federal government to directly fund a pay rise for childcare workers, who earn as little as $22 an hour – barely more than the minimum wage.

Fewer Australians are studying to work in childcare, with the number of completions of childcare diplomas plunging 23 per cent to 9630 between 2019 and 2020. Only 11,880 students completed a Certificate III – the most basic qualification for childcare workers – after a 24 per cent fall in graduates. Vacancies across the childcare sector have doubled since the start of the pandemic, with centres seeking to hire 5622 carers last month.

Nearly one in every seven daycare centres is so short-staffed that they have been granted a waiver to operate without the required number of qualified staff.

The budget failed to provide wage relief for daycare operators, or fee relief for parents, who ­recently pocketed higher subsidies for second and subsequent children in daycare. Some 250,000 Australian families will receive an average of $2200 a year through higher subsidies, which kicked in on March 7, following changes announced in last year’s budget.

A spokesman for Acting Education Minister Stuart Robert said the budget included incentives for traineeships in childcare, including $4000 paid to employers and $3000 paid directly to trainees.

He said the number of students enrolled in an early learning teaching degree at university had risen 22 per cent last year, after the government slashed tuition fees by 42 per cent. At Goodstart’s North Sydney Berry Street centre, director Kayla Matheny sees a “never ending cycle” of educators burning out and quitting.

“We’re constantly battling to find educators to meet our family demands,’’ she said. “Unless the workforce crisis is dealt with, there just won’t be enough educators for the children that parents want or need in care, and that is going to hold back the rest of the economy, making it harder for parents to get back to work as well. We need a well-funded workforce strategy that encourages educators to stay, rather than taking better paid jobs elsewhere, and also encourages more young people to join the ­sector.’’

Isobel Toh, 42, a casual educator at Goodstart Early Learning, loves working with children with special needs. “We really support these children, we discuss with parents things like speech therapy or any access to things like that so we can help through the preschool,” she said. “When I see them one year later and they’ve improved a lot, I feel so proud and happy.”