Workers in many American industries enjoy the best pay rises they have had in years thanks to labor shortage caused by the COVID-19[feminine[feminine pandemic. And a traditionally poorly paid job that is receiving a significant salary increase: babysitting.
The average salary of a babysitter rose 11 percent last year to $ 20.57 an hour to care for a child, according to a new UrbanSitter analysis that connects babysitters with families seeking help. . This jump means that nanny wages are outpacing inflation, which rose 7% in December compared to the previous year.
This is great news for babysitters, but it comes at a higher cost for families who are already struggling. inflation for other goods and services.
As in other fields, babysitters may charge more because there is currently a shortage of suppliers. This demand also allows caregivers to drive better working conditions, such as a guarantee of minimum working hours, said Lynn Perkins, founder and CEO of UrbanSitter.
“I’m excited to see this, as it has traditionally been a poorly paid and underappreciated workforce,” Perkins said. “They can even charge a premium. They can say, ‘I’ll work just for you, but I need that rate and an X number of hours.’
Kangaroo rates tend to rise in line with inflation, prompting Perkins to describe the recent pay jump as “shocking.”
Families are already strained by the costs of caring for their children, who now consume an average of almost a third of women’s income. Many daycare centers are also closing as they struggle to find people to hire, such as the Manchester School for Young Children in Topeka, Kansas. he told CBS News did not find skilled workers.
Tense family budgets due to rising childcare costs
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At the same time, teens, a major talent group for kangaroos, are finding more and more work in restaurants and other businesses looking for desperate workers. The unemployment rate for teenagers fell below 10% last year, marking the best employment situation for adolescents since 1953. According to the Washington Post, this change has contributed to a 10% decrease in the number of nursery workers before the pandemic.
With more professionals working remotely nearly three years after the pandemic, some families are opting for kangaroos for their children instead of the traditional daycare setting, Perkins added.
“It’s like the perfect storm of inflation and supply and just getting a lot more demand from individual care providers,” he noted. “We have more demand because many families have decided with flexible working hours that returning to a traditional daycare does not make sense for their families.”
UrbanSitter site babysitters are usually older than the typical teen babysitter, such as people in their 20s who are doing a master’s degree and want to make money next door. Perkins said he has also seen more preschoolers come in to look for work during the pandemic, which could be due to a desire to care for one or two children instead of several children in the classroom.
They can also earn more through private daycare, as the average salary of a daycare worker in 2020 was $ 12.24 an hour, according to government data.
Kangaroos in large coastal cities earn the highest rates for their work, the UrbanSitter analysis found. San Francisco parents with two children pay more than $ 26 an hour, while New York City families pay an average of nearly $ 25 an hour to see two children, the site reported. The lowest rates are usually in the Southwest, with parents in San Antonio, Texas, who pay an average of nearly $ 16 to see two children.
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