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Romer: Addressing the child care challenge is key to solving the workforce shortage

Housing gets the biggest headlines when it comes to our community challenges, and rightfully so. Our businesses are struggling to attract and retain workforce, and the workforce shortage is resulting in reduced business hours and select day of week closures.

But housing isn’t the only challenge in getting people back to work. An additional critical barrier standing in the way of getting people back to work is child care. We see this challenge both nationally and in Eagle County, where 73% of employers report that employees experience finding child care is a major frustration or could be better.

The employee experience with child care access and availability is second only to housing on the ability to attract, hire and retain employees.



Child care is a workforce issue around the country, and prioritizing investment in the following ways will help to overcome this barrier, writes Cheryl Oldham, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of education policy in a recent op-ed in The Hill:

  • Investments in the child care workforce: In the short term, states can offer incentives such as signing bonuses for child care workers to return to work, and retention bonuses for established early childhood educators. In the long term, continued education grants and apprenticeship programs to support early childhood educators can meet the incredible demand for quality child care.
  • Supporting working parents: States can and should invest in their data infrastructure. By creating databases that monitor the type and supply of child care available to communities, families, and child care providers both benefit.
  • Investing in the business side of child care: Stabilizing and growing the child care industry is a must. Grant and loan programs to stabilize existing child care programs and launch new, quality options will prevent child care deserts from growing, promote innovation from providers, and increase options for families.

Lack of available and accessible child care is a contributing factor in decisions not to return to work. Nearly 1 in 4 unemployed Americans cite child care and other family needs as a factor in why they are not actively looking for work, according to a study from earlier this year.

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Those 1 in 4 not actively seeking work say they agree with the statement: “The need to be home and care for children or others in my family, during the pandemic, has made it difficult or impossible to search for full-time employment, right now.”

Additionally, nearly 1 in 4 (23%) say they do not have the skills or experience necessary for most of the jobs available right now, while 28% say a lack of available jobs in hard-hit industries are keeping them from returning to work. Another 26% say COVID-19 concerns are still a factor. There is no silver bullet to our workforce shortage.

We are facing workforce challenges that are unlike any in recent memory; too many jobs are available, and we do not have enough people in our workforce to fill them. The result: too many businesses that can’t grow, compete and thrive.

Barriers to employment like housing, child care, transportation and receiving training and development stop talented candidates from taking a job, and result in talented people leaving Eagle County for other areas with a lower cost of living.

The solution is to add workers by removing barriers. Removing barriers to our key challenges of housing and child care is an investment in our community, in our people, and at the same time an investment in our economic infrastructure.


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