Au pair, babysitter, day care, doula, child care workers job outlook

Career in Child Care

About 1 out of 3 child care workers are self-employed; most of these are family child care providers.
Training requirements vary from a high school diploma to a college degree, although a high school diploma and little or no experience are adequate for many jobs.
Many workers leave these jobs every year, creating good job opportunities.

Job Outlook

High replacement needs should create good job opportunities for child care workers. Qualified persons who are interested in this work should have little trouble finding and keeping a job. Many child care workers must be replaced each year as they leave the occupation temporarily to fulfill family responsibilities, to study, or for other reasons. Others leave permanently because they are interested in pursuing other occupations or because of dissatisfaction with hours, low pay and benefits, and stressful conditions.

Employment of child care workers is projected to increase about as fast as the average for all occupations through the year 2014. The number of women in the labor force of childbearing age (widely considered to be ages 15 to 44) and the number of children under 5 years of age are both expected to rise over the next 10 years. Also, the proportion of children being cared for exclusively by parents or other relatives is likely to continue to decline, spurring demand for additional child care workers. Concern about the behavior of school-aged children during nonschool hours also should increase demand for before- and afterschool programs and child care workers to staff them.

The growth in demand for child care workers will be moderated, however, by an increasing emphasis on early childhood education programs. While only a few States currently provide targeted or universal preschool programs, many more are considering or currently implementing such programs. There also is likely to be a rise in enrollment in private preschools as the value of formal education before kindergarten becomes more widely accepted. Since the majority of workers in these programs are classified as preschool teachers, this growth in preschool enrollment will mean that relatively fewer child care workers will be needed for children old enough to participate in preschool.

Source:

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-07 Edition, Child Care Workers, on the internet at http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos170.htm (visited November 12, 2006).

Childcare Profession

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Career in Child Care

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