Local business leaders talk childcare and the workforce

OLYMPIA –– Business leaders gathered in this week’s “Declassified” meeting to discuss challenges to working families accessing local childcare and impacts to lack of access on the workforce in Thurston County. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic changing the working landscape for many parents, challenges abound over continuing to work from home. Many parents with jobs also now act as de facto teachers to their young children and childcare workers while also trying to work. The situation many families find themselves in underscores longtime issues surrounding affordable childcare, business leaders said on Thursday.

“This is a decades-old crisis,” said Gary Burris, executive director of Child Care Action Council. “The cost of childcare is prohibitive for many working parents. What parents have to rely on is a patchwork of care, so they may rely on a schedule that parents have different shifts, or they may rely on family, friends or neighbors to take care of their kids.”

13 million parents nationwide, according to Thurston County Chamber President & CEO David Schaffert, rely on childcare in order to continue working. The coronavirus pandemic that broke out earlier this year changed the situation of 90 percent of working parents across the country, and caused two-thirds of those parents to adjust childcare arrangements. 

“The issue is significant for people to be able to work,” Schaffert said. 

Efforts to localize this issue to Thurston County resulted in a survey conducted by the Child Care Action Council, which had about 70 child care providers respond. In Thurston County, 21 homes licensed as child care providers who care for between six and 12 children said their average monthly loss was $2,900 a month. This could be half to two-thirds of a child care provider’s monthly revenue, according to Burris. Child care centers with 15 to 27 children are losing an average of $5,000 a month, while larger centers who care for more than 100 children have lost between $13,000 to $35,000 a month. 

“You can imagine that if you have a center losing $35,000 a month, even with those [stimulus] programs that came in, that money gets eaten up really fast,” Burris said. 

So what can be done to support working families and child care providers in Thurston County, as well as other places? Business leaders who spoke at Thursday’s Declassified event said a partnership between private industry and the government is one strong solution. Including child care as a benefit to employees was also a solution broached during Thursday’s Declassified, as well as providing more financial support to working families so that they can afford child care. 

“That can come either through direct support to families with a portion of a voucher towards the cost, or it could be underwriting the system like we do with higher education,” said Burris. “One way or another, it’s an affordability issue.”

Amongst the many ideas for how to best support families with children and child care providers, all the Declassified speakers agreed child care is needed not just for local families, but to keep the region’s –– and the nation’s –– economy going. 

“We have social security, we have Medicare. We need child care to be elevated to that same level,” said Jason Robertson, principal at J. Robertson & Co. and Thurston Strong. “It’s a right and a requisite for a strong economy.”