Tasmania's early childhood education and care industry is in 'crisis' as staff leave for better pay and hours

For Kellie Watson, a workforce growth project manager for Early Years and School Aged Care Tasmania, the strain within the industry can no longer be ignored.

"We have a workforce crisis in our sector at the moment," Ms Watson said.

"We require more educators, and we require educators that are skilled and qualified so our children can get some great quality outcomes".

And although the Tasmanian government recently announced a further rollout of ECEC access in the state's most remote areas, the issues run deeper than simply addressing accessibility.

A study by the United Workers Union from last year showed 36 per cent of ECEC workers surveyed in Tasmania had planned to leave the industry, and 76 per cent of that group had intended to leave within the next three years.

The state's most educated were most likely to leave, with 100 per cent of surveyed ECEC workers who were upskilling through a Masters degree intending to leave the industry within three years for better employment opportunities.

Among the reasons for leaving were excessive workload (72 per cent), low pay (63 per cent), and feeling undervalued (44 per cent).

But a year on from the study, little has changed within the industry.

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Ms Watson said over the past few years ECEC has seen the combined effect of staff burnout and a lack of supply needed to fill centres.

"We have a workforce that worked all the way through COVID, and they continued to work - we stayed open the whole time," she said.

The two-fold problem of pay and burnout have created a vicious cycle for the sector.

On one hand, she said, ECEC workers were fighting to be recognised as professionals with a professional wage.

The Children's Services award entry wage for someone who has a Certificate III is currently $21.80. This increases to $23.20 with a Diploma.

Although the pay can differ from centre to centre depending on enterprise agreements, Ms Watson said the low pay was leading to a skills shortage as early years teachers left for better paying jobs.

"What happens is our educators study a bachelor's degree, and then they realise that the pay conditions are greater in the education system," she said.

On the other hand, the industry's use of mandated ratios that require a centre to provide a certain number of staff per child means many Tasmanian ECEC providers have had to cap their numbers as staff leave.

Ms Watson said on some occasions, centres have had to close rooms or hold services, an issue that continues to disproportionately affect the state's rural and remote areas.

"If things don't change, our fear is that we won't have sufficient educators to staff services," she said.

"And one of the risks is that our more rural and remote communities won't have that service provided, which also then impacts their economy because people need our service to access work as well".

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However, the problem is not isolated to Tasmania's childcare centres.

When the national jobs summit convenes this week, wage growth in the troubled sector will be on the list for discussion.

United Workers Union early education director Helen Gibbons said this year's Early Childhood Educator's Day would look very different, with thousands of ECEC workers expected to strike nationally on September 7.

She said the low wages that early educators in Tasmania were experiencing were the same in every state and territory.

"Early educators, like the rest of the community, worked really hard during the pandemic, but they got to the end feeling frustrated that they've been called 'essential workers', and yet there's no addressing their low wages and poor working conditions," Ms Gibbons said.

"They have responsible jobs, they're all qualified, they care for our youngest Australians, and they're paid as little as $23 an hour".

Ms Gibbons said part of the issue was how it was perceived by policy makers.

"The care and education of young children has always been traditionally seen as women's work," she said.

Recent data from the most recent National Workforce Census showed about 97 per cent of the ECEC sector is female.

And overwhelmingly, according to the National Workplace Gender Equality Agency, female-dominated industries such as education, social assistance, and health care earn smaller salaries than other mixed, and male-dominated industries.

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Australia Institute researcher Dr Mark Dean said the federal government needed to shift its thinking toward ECEC and expand coverage to more families, with the goal of ultimately making it universal.

If ECEC was to be treated as an essential service the key, Dr Dean said, would be to see more funding to the TAFE system, which has seen consistent funding cuts over the last decade.

He also said changes to industrial relations and shifting a largely casual workforce to more secure employment would need to be considered federally.

"This is a clear example of when there's no excuse for the industry to say that we can't afford to pay more wages or provide more secure work, because they are making an enormous profit from their workforces, and from the services they provide," Mr Dean said.

"But these are all issues that the federal government has to intervene in to force companies to the table to actually see this from a worker's point of view".

If the ECEC sector could be considered as an essential service such as manufacturing, he said, then the value of the industry would become more apparent.

A greater investment in ECEC would then help close socio-economic divides by increasing workforce participation, and boosting early years literacy and numeracy skills.

"It's not simply something to be bought and sold for profit, but at the same time it's not also a cost to government," he said.

"It's an investment in the future, and it's an investment in future Australian workers and community members."

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Although the issue is tied-up in the federal funding model, state-level solutions such as the Working Together childcare subsidy program, and the promise of rolling out more regional childcare services by 2024, have been welcomed by the industry.

The Tasmanian Department of Education have signalled they are willing to engage with stakeholders and workers in the state, although how more services in remote areas will be provided is yet to be fleshed out.

A report by the Mitchell Institute last year into childcare services nationwide identified the growth of "childcare deserts" - or a lack of access to any service - as a growing problem which affected mainly regional and remote areas.

In Tasmania, it identified "relatively low levels" of access to childcare services state-wide, and the number of childcare places per child sat below the national median.

And despite projected growth in the workforce, the state will need to stymie the outflow of skilled workers if it is to find a stable path forward.

Ms Gibbons said this federal-level change would need to begin with consultation within the ECEC sector.

"There's no shortage of early educators in the country, there's a shortage of early educators who want to work in education, but they've left to work at Aldi and Bunnings because they'll be paid more".

For Ms Watson, the crisis provides a significant opportunity for change.

"There's an opportunity for systemic change at all levels, and I think it is required at all levels,

"If we're to get sustainable change, everybody needs to take responsibility for the wellbeing of our children and the workforce that provides for them".

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