EASING LABOUR MARKET PRESSURE THROUGH CHILDCARE FLEXIBILITY (2007)

There are a number of components in the province’s childcare system that need to be addressed to improve on the availability, affordability and inclusiveness of childcare in the province. The following policy focuses specifically on one regulatory adjustment that could improve on the availability of childcare to parents of young children up to three years of age. The change could permit approximately 1,350 skilled employees to return to the workforce.

Businesses across British Columbia are having difficulty in finding and keeping skilled labour. The challenges associated with this issue are well-documented and parts of the problem are being addressed or, at least, explored in a number of ways including attracting and retaining skilled and unskilled workers to specific sectors of the labour market, improving educational opportunities for workers to be more equipped for employment in today’s labour market, working to increase immigration of skilled and unskilled workers into the province to fill labour market gaps, and encouraging older workers to remain in the workforce.

By comparison, little has been done to determine the impact our approach to childcare has on the labour market on a provincial basis. Yet various regional childcare associations have collected information from their own areas of the province relating the challenges parents are experiencing.

In a labour market with a dearth of skilled workers, it is incumbent upon the provincial government to do everything it can to ensure that all individuals with a desire and capacity to work are able to do so. Unfortunately, for many parents this is not the case due to unfavourable conditions concerning care of their children. One re-occurring theme across the province from parents is the lack of childcare availability.

Due to extremely limited childcare spaces, parents report being advised when they first become expectant to start sourcing childcare spaces for their infant or toddler if they have an expectation of entering or returning to the workforce. The average length of waittime is difficult to pinpoint as parents use more than one waitlist and conditions for parents change; however, it is not uncommon to expect a waittime of two to three years. In addition, numerous childcare providers have simply ceased to add parents to their waitlists as the effort is futile given the number of parents waiting ahead of them and the fact the child is ageing.

The lack of available childcare spaces in the province affects not only new workers, but also skilled employees in the midst of their productive career path who have left the workforce to have a child. Parents across the province report that they are unable to return to satisfying careers because they cannot find childcare for their new children. The outcome is that one of the parents is forced to leave their employment.

The Chamber of Commerce is concerned about this issue. Skilled employees are difficult to find and losing those in whom companies have already invested and who have become part of a productive team has a negative impact on business. It forces companies to look for new employees in an already competitive labour market, and incur the expenses associated with training and turnover.

Trends have shown that today’s youth are delaying marriage and child birth, which implies that those skilled employees caught in the childcare crunch are also those very workers who are approaching mid-career with a level of expertise and proficiency that is not easily replaced. Statistics Canada research also shows that in 2002-2003, 54% of children aged 0–5 are in some form of childcare, up from 42% in 1994–1995. The same source notes that 86% of mothers are back in the workforce within a year of having given birth and their children are in some form of non-parental care. A lack of stability among this growing group of employees affects the stability of business in terms of staffing levels and succession planning.

In 2003 in the province of British Columbia, there were 357,900 parents of children from infants to 12 years of age in the paid labour force. Of these children:

• 70,400 were from birth to 2 years of age;
• 78,400 were from 3 to 5 years of age; and,
• 209,500 were from 6 to12 years of age.

Workforce participation of BC mothers by age of their youngest child was:

• From birth to 2 years of age – 70,100 or 67.4%;
• From 3 to 5 years of age – 56,000 or 73.5%; and,
• From 6 to 12 years – 175,100 or 78.7%.

Childcare associations express concern that parents who are unable to access spaces in regulated childcare centres yet must return to work for financial reasons are increasingly turning to less safe childcare options. In turn, those parents are concerned and often pre-occupied at work regarding the suitability of their childcare arrangements, which impact daily productivity and the health and welfare of employers and their children.

The issue of space capacity is particularly tight for infants and toddlers up to the age of three. The Western Canada Family Child Care Association of BC (WCFCCABC) reports that many of the group day care centres are meeting the demand for care for pre-school children in most areas of the province, but that for the most part, they do not accept infants and toddlers under the age of three. Paradoxically, a number of the smaller Family Child Care Centres, who do take infants and toddlers up to three years of age, are operating at less than capacity.

Family Childcare Centres are, for the most part, smaller home-based businesses operated out of the home in which the careprovider lives. The experience of careproviders range from fully certified Early Childhood Educators to new parents without any formal education or training. There are currently 1,369 licensed Family Childcare Centres in the province. The centres must comply with provincial regulations regarding the numbers and ages of children allowed in their care. The standard regulations are as follows:

• A limit of seven children in total;
• Children may be 0-12 years of age;
• Allowance for up to 5 pre-school aged children;
• Allowance for up to 3 children under the age of 3; and,
• A limit of one child under the age of 12 months.

Under certain conditions, a Family Child Care Provider may be granted a variance to these regulations on a case by case basis to allow for more children in the up to 3 years or up to 5 years categories. However, for safety reasons, no variance is permitted to allow more than one child under the age of 12 months. Criteria for variance consideration include such factors as the careprovider’s level of training or education, experience, and the location in which the care is being provided.

Increased flexibility in the regulations regarding the numbers of children up to the age of three would be beneficial. By allowing careproviders to care for up to four children under the age of three years while maintaining one child less than 12 months, some centres that operate at less than capacity could be more fully utilized.

It is important to note that this resolution does not support an increase to four children under the age of three years across the board. The safety of children is paramount and flexibility should be limited to those service providers with the requisite education or training and experience to justify the change.

The Chamber supports the need for flexibility in the family childcare regulatory system and the logic in having that flexibility built into the regulatory framework rather than as a result of individual variance requests. Furthermore, The Chamber supports that the requirements to pre-quality for the flexibility that provides for an extra child under the age of three remain as it currently is – based upon adequate education or training, experience, and location.

Pre-existing flexibility provides benefits to both the qualified Family Child Care Providers and the business community. The careproviders will be able to seamlessly fill childcare spots as they become available with appropriately aged children rather than having to interrupt their business operations and run at less than capacity while they go through the variance process. The benefit to the business community comes from the increase in childcare spots for young children across the province, freeing up more skilled workers to return to their jobs or enter the workforce.

Given the increasing numbers of single-parent and dual-parent families with young children in the workforce, there is vastly more childcare spaces required by parents and employers than could be satisfied with the suggested regulatory adjustment. The Child Care Resource and Referral Centres database shows a total of 6414 regulated spots available across the province for infants and children up to 30 months of age and 34,400 for children from 30 months to school age. This represents only 10% and 44% of the numbers of children in those respective age ranges whose parents are in the labour force. While it is clear that some parents access and perhaps prefer other forms of childcare, such as family-provided care or private, in-home care, the shortage of regulated care is a drain on worker availability.

The Chamber is increasingly concerned about the impact that the lack of childcare spaces has on business productivity and its potential impact on the economy as a whole. Indeed, some economists estimate that if all working parents of all children under the age of six were to leave the labour force, the cost to the Canadian economy would be approximately $83 billion per year.

THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS

That the provincial government review its regulations pertaining to Family Child Care Centres to:

1. establish a flexibility clause in their regulatory framework to allow childcare providers that have the necessary education or training, safety requirements and experience to be pre-qualified to increase from three to four the numbers of children up to the age of three years in their care;
2. maintain the limit of only one child up to the age of 12 months in Family Childcare Centres with the exception of instances of multiple birth; and,
3. examine the maximum numbers of children advisable for centres with four children up to the age of three years in order to maintain a safe childcare environment.