Friday's job report underscores the severity of America's child care crisis
Friday’s job report showed unmistakable signs of a weakening labor market.
Friday’s job report showed unmistakable signs of a weakening labor market.
Buried in the report was another warning about an exploding problem now being vigorously debated ahead of November’s election.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the share of Americans who were absent from work because of child care difficulties matched the all-time record for August. While the dataset has shown large monthly swings and is on a largely downward trend, it remains well above the peaks seen in the pre-pandemic period.
At the same time, employment in child care services has not been nearly enough to match the demand, according to Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, who highlighted the statistic in a note following Friday’s job report.
Tired, burnt-out mother with baby in her arms and out of focus children run around. Mother is sitting on floor in living room, among vacuum cleaner, laundry and children running around.Natalia Lebedinskaia / Getty Images“There’s a market failure,” Pollak told NBC News in a follow-up interview.
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