The staff shortage at childcare organizations is acute and new employees are difficult to find. There are therefore more than 500 vacancies, according to research by Omroep Brabant. And that has major consequences: “We sometimes work understaffed and we are walking on our gums.”
In March this year, parents with children at NumberOne Childcare in the Kempen received the bad news that a number of locations and groups will close after the May holiday due to a lack of staff. We received signals from other childcare organizations that it is difficult to find sufficient staff.
Reason for Omroep Brabant to investigate what the staff shortage means for childcare organizations in Brabant.
We asked 240 childcare organizations whether they suffer from a staff shortage and what the consequences are for them. It generated 104 responses from both large and small childcare organizations across the province.
57 childcare organisations, which together account for about 458 locations in Brabant, indicate that there is a staff shortage within their organization. 47 childcare organisations, a total of around 59 locations, indicate that they are not affected by the staff shortage. The vast majority are therefore eagerly looking for new employees.
“Everyone has to work so much extra during illness and holidays, in fact everyone is constantly tired.”
This has far-reaching consequences for parents and their children as well as employees. Excessive work pressure is mentioned as the most frequently mentioned consequence of the shortages. Organizations indicate that employees have been working extra hours since corona time.
This is still the case due to the current staff shortage. “In the longer term, this means that more people will drop out due to illness,” says an organization in Southeast Brabant.
Granting vacations proves to be a challenge and the tight staffing schedule causes stress. “Everyone has to work so much extra during illness and holidays, in fact everyone is constantly tired. The rack is a bit out and we can no longer take on extra children because there are no staff,” says one of childcare organizations.
According to the organizations, there is therefore more demand for childcare, but there are few expansion options. Waiting lists are getting longer and groups sometimes have to close temporarily: “We will do that as a last resort.”
“You have to work many days with few hours to get interesting contract hours.”
To solve the shortages, many organizations call the deployment of current staff by temporarily increasing contracts.
Permanent contracts are issued earlier and organizations are seeking cooperation with vocational education. For example, more and more interns are hired with the aim of retaining them as soon as they have completed their training. Office staff and board members are also deployed in groups.
“Unfortunately, the administrative task of a pedagogical employee has only increased.”
We also hear back that pedagogical employees are given administrative tasks that do not actually belong to them. “There are too many rules. Mind you, the rules for the protection of the child are fine, but the administrative task of a pedagogical employee has unfortunately only increased.”
They also mean by this the stricter legislation in force since 2018which means that more employees are needed on a smaller number of children.
One of the organizations noted that it is especially difficult to find good employees for after-school care.
“The times and contract hours are not attractive. It concerns the hours after school (2 p.m. – 6.30 p.m.) and these are precisely the times when the children of the employees themselves are at home. Many days with few hours have to be worked in order to obtain interesting contract hours. to come.”
Not everyone is equally pessimistic about the last question in our survey whether there are still things that organizations want to get rid of: “Long waiting lists and it is difficult to find replacement staff. But it is a great profession.”
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