More early educators leaving the industry than ever before have been attributed to a "perfect storm" of reasons. Within the past week, 39 early childhood services shut down due to a lack of educators to run them.
The Parenthood's Georgie Dent told Today these closures are "incredibly disruptive" for families and the situation will get worse.
"Early educators are leaving because they are underpaid, they feel undervalued and they are increasingly burnt out," she said.
Dent said the rate of workers leaving the industry had increased dramatically over the COVID-19 pandemic and staff vacancies had more than doubled in two years.
"We know that COVID-19 puts so much pressure on early childhood educators," she said.
"They didn't have the luxury of working from home, they were on the front line of the pandemic in a sense we needed them to turn up to work so that other essential workers could go to work."
Dent added that the work is incredibly demanding and early educators are not paid well enough for the work they do.
"We've seen this perfect storm of the burnout from COVID-19, feeling underpaid, the overwhelm and we're seeing people leave," she said.
"It is something we absolutely need to address because we need educators if we want our children to have access to the quality early learning that we know sets them up for lifelong success."
Reference:
Dozens Of Childcare Centres Closed From Mass Staff Shortages, 9 News Australia, 5th December 2022
