Childcare employment—before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The employment rate in the United States fell dramatically in many industries during the COVID-19 pandemic—the childcare industry, in particular, was hit hard. In this article, we use data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Business Response Surveys and other BLS sources to examine employment, wages, telework, benefits, and the inner workings of the critical child daycare services industry before and during the pandemic and most importantly how the industry has managed since. Although the childcare industry’s wages are low and it has high labor turnover, our findings show that it is critical in supporting workers across all industries.