Childcarers want subsidy for fee freeze

Childcare workers will quit the industry in droves unless the federal government comes up with subsidies as part of any move to cap fees, a union says.

The federal government is canvassing options to freeze childcare fees, including paying direct subsidies to the industry in exchange for price agreements, News Limited reports.

United Voice assistant national secretary Sue Lines said early childhood educators needed to be paid $26-an-hour, instead of $18 at present, so people in this sector could have a career.

“Parents also want quality and quality can only be delivered if the federal government puts money into wages,” Ms Lines told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.

“Looking at the news report this morning, it seems to be saying that the government will agree to some formula to cap the price of childcare in return for professional wages and making childcare more available for low-income families.”

Ms Lines said that without a government professional wages subsidy, 180 childhood specialists would leave the sector every week.

“They can’t afford to stay,” she said.

Jemma Carlisle, an early childhood educator in Sydney’s east, said that in her two-decade career, she had had to work extra jobs yet could still not afford to own a home.

“It’s not a job. It’s something I’m totally committed to,” she told reporters.

“We losing a third of our workforce every year … we’re losing highly qualified, highly skilled, highly experienced workers who want to stay but can’t afford to.”

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