METRO CHILD CARE WAGES
Employment development agency Workforce Solutions tallied the number of child care providers in the 13-county Houston-Galveston region of Texas from April 2021 to June 2022. From May 2022 to June 2022, the region lost 41 providers. METRO CHILD CARE PROVIDERS METRO CHILD CARE
The average annual wage for child care workers in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan area increased by 33.6% in the last decade. Local child care center operations said providing adequate pay for their sta can be a challenge.
$25,000
1,500
$20,000
1,400
$15,000
1,300
+33.6 % from 2010-21
-2.86 % from May 2022
$10,000
1,200
$0
0
2022
2021
SOURCES: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, TEXAS WORKFORCE SOLUTIONS, GULF COAST WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT BOARD COMMUNITY IMPACT
which aims to create up to 1,000 child care slots for children age 3 and younger with an emphasis on com- munities where there are few to no such options. The slots program also aids child care centers in nancial recovery and stabilization following the exacerbating e ects of the pandemic while support- ing ongoing capacity building for child care providers and requiring participating organizations to pay sta at least $15 hourly wages. Meanwhile, in Fort Bend County, the Child Care
Voucher Program issued just under 75 vouchers to Katy applicants, almost 300 to Rosenberg appli- cants and almost 225 to Richmond applicants, said Qaisar Imam, program administrator for the county’s voucher program. “Lot[s] of parents were returning to the workforce after the pandemic and could not a ord child care due to reduced income levels,” Imam said. Area child care providers, such as Ahren, hope to foster relationships with KISD and local developers
to work in tandem and not in competition with one another. “Our goal is to work directly with the ISDs and say, ‘Look, we have a prekindergarten facility, so you don’t
need to build another campus,’” he said. Ally Bolender contributed to this report.
For more information, visit communityimpact.com .
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KATY EDITION • OCTOBER 2022
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