Early childhood educators are the key to quality in early childhood education, and they are also key to growth in the availability of child care services. So, let’s take some time to see how things are going.
Let’s start with this chart.
I’ll describe the data source in a minute, but look at what it tells us. The number of workers in child care has tripled over the period from 2001-2025. Also, we see that, in 2020, the pandemic drove over 20,000 workers out of child care. But since that time, and especially with the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Program in 2021, the number of workers in the child care industry has risen quickly – from about 128,000 at the depth of the pandemic to over 200,000 in 2025. Many of us are used to bemoaning the crisis of staff shortages, but it is worth also seeing that the supply of workers in child care has been rising quickly.
This data comes from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH). This survey provides a monthly portrait of the number of jobs (i.e., occupied positions), hours worked and average wages, by detailed industry at the national, provincial and territorial levels. Monthly survey estimates are produced by a combination of a census of payroll deductions, provided by the Canada Revenue Agency, and the Business Payrolls Survey (BPS), which collects data from a sample of 15,000 businesses.
The relevant industry for centre-based child care is the “child day-care services industry” (Industry #624410) which includes child care centres, nursery schools and preschools and also prekindergartens if they are not part of the school system. The industry does not include sitters providing child care in homes or nannies or staff working in school-based kindergartens.
The second chart below shows average weekly earnings in the child day-care services industry from 2001-2025. Of course, there is a mix of employees – supervisors, educators, assistants, support staff – with different levels of qualification, that work in this industry. Average weekly earnings is an average across all of these occupations. We can see a clear pattern of rising average weekly earnings over the period, with a particularly rapid rate of rise since about 2019. The chart does not adjust for inflation, but we know that the average price level has risen by about 68% since 2001. So, we can conclude that the real value of weekly earnings in the child day-care services industry rose by about 25% over 2001-2025.
Although wage levels have been rising, the average is still relatively low. The level in 2025 – $891.17 per week – amounts to $23.76 per hour over a 37.5 hour work week, or $22.28 per hour over a 40 hour work week.
The third chart – below – is a bit more perplexing. This chart shows job vacancies for early childhood educators and assistants. The data on job vacancies comes from a quarterly survey of businesses across the country. Businesses report on how many additional workers they are willing and able to hire right now, and what wage level they are offering to these prospective workers.
The top section of the chart shows us job vacancies for early childhood educators and assistants from 2019 to 2026. In 2019 and 2020 there were about 5,000-6,000 vacant positions in any quarter. Then, vacant positions rose rapidly in 2021, peaking at nearly 13,000 in mid-2022. Throughout 2022 until early 2024, there were always about 10,000 or more unfilled positions in child care. From the end of 2024 till now, vacant positions have fallen somewhat down to something like 7,000-8,000 positions unfilled.
Your first instinct might be surprise. Everyone knows there are substantial child care staff shortages – especially for early childhood educators. For instance, the Ontario Auditor General estimates that Ontario will need about 10,000 additional staff to meet their expansion objectives. So, why are job vacancies lower now than in 2022-23?
However, a job vacancy is not quite the same thing as a staff shortage. For a position to be vacant in Statistics Canada’s Job Vacancy and Wage Survey, a business has to say that they need more staff but also that they are able and willing to hire them. Centres that need more staff but don’t have a sufficient revenue stream to hire them at prevailing wages will not have a job vacancy, even though they have a staff shortage.
In any case, there continue to be significant job vacancies amongst early childhood educators and assistants, though not as high a level as in 2022-2023.
“Early childhood educators and assistants” is the name of the relevant occupation if we are concerned with workers in child care centres. The occupation includes both educators – planning, organizing and implementing programs for children 0-12 and assistants, working with educators. These educators and assistants are employed in child-care centres, daycare centres, kindergartens, agencies for exceptional children and other settings where early childhood education services are provided. Supervisors of early childhood educators and assistants are included.
The average hourly wage offered to prospective new employees is shown along with the job vacancies. It has been rising steadily, in line with the rising wage levels we saw earlier for the child day-care services industry.
We will soon have more precise data about workers in child care centres across Canada. Statistics Canada has designed and implemented a Canadian Child Care Worker Survey 2026 that recently collected data (February-May 2026. The results are not yet available, but are expected in 2027. The questionnaire is available here: https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p3instr.pl?Function=getInstrumentList&Item_Id=1582569&UL=1V& This new survey focuses on centre-based child care workers particularly on factors related to the workplace, compensation and staff well-being. The survey aims to better understand how these factors influence the recruitment, retention and recognition of child care workers.