Parents are left without childcare as daycare centers close at short notice due to financial pressures and staff shortages.
The campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed said they were “inundated” with messages from parents whose local daycare suddenly closed.
Nurseries face increased energy, food and labor costs and struggle to hire new staff.
The government announced it would increase funding for childcare providers.
But the Early Years Alliance, which represents around 14,000 providers and also has its own daycare facilities, said the sector is facing its worst hiring and cost-increasing crisis in 20 years.
- “It shouldn’t be a choice between a baby and a career”
- The cost of summer childcare is so high that I would pay to do the work.
Gabrielle Drake said she was left in a “crazy mess” trying to find a new nursery for her 13-month-old son when his current provider closed forever overnight.
Parents received an email on August 5 telling them that the nursery would be permanently closed at the end of the day as the company was undergoing a “restructuring”.
Gabrielle and her partner both work full-time and were unable to find a new daycare center at such short notice, so they now have to rely on their parents to look after their son for a month.
The 35-year-old from Leeds has managed to find a new nursery for September. She contacted 20 local nurseries but only four replied that they had places, two of which are brand new and therefore do not yet have Ofsted inspection reports.
Because their son did not attend the daycare on the day it closed, they were unable to collect his belongings, including clothes and diapers.
She said the closure was also disruptive for her son, who has settled in well in kindergarten and made friends.
Welcome Nurseries, which owns the branch, went into administration earlier this month – closing six of its 32 locations in a sale.
BBC News has reached out to Welcome Nurseries and co-manager Begbies Traynor for comment.
Harriet Butterworth, manager of Cottontails Nursery in Warrington, said she was concerned it would be forced to close because of increased costs.
The day-care center is making a loss and has already increased fees twice this year to cover the increased personnel costs.
Ms Butterworth said she increased salaries by 12.5% for her lowest-paid workers to attract and retain employees.
“We’re competing with companies like Hermes, Amazon, basic retail jobs that pay these really high hourly rates, with much more flexible hours,” Ms Butterworth added.
She said the nursery is also facing increased food and energy bills as her gas and electricity bills more than doubled to £9,000 in the last quarter.
The nursery was forced to turn off their boiler and limit use of the gas oven to save energy.
Neil Leitch, executive director of the Early Years Alliance, said he had “never faced such a crisis in terms of recruitment and retention and cost pressures” in his 20 years in the sector.
He blamed the government’s underinvestment in the sector, as well as rising costs for things like energy, food and human resources.
Parents of three and four year old children in England are entitled to 15 free hours of childcare per week. Working families may also be eligible for an additional 15 hours per week of funded early childhood education. However, Mr Leitch said this allocation was underfunded by the government and providers had to make up the shortfall.
He said many providers are being forced to increase fees for other parents to offset the resulting costs.
A survey of 2,000 early childhood education providers conducted in March found that 30% are currently operating at a loss, while 34% said they expect to be in 12 months.
Three years ago, Allianz operated 132 preschool facilities, today there are only 65, more than half of which have been closed for financial reasons.
The number of childcare providers in England has fallen steadily since 2015, with the number of nurseries and pre-schools falling by 196 between August 2021 and March this year, according to Inspector Ofsted.
However, Jonathan Broadbery of the National Day Nurseries Association said anecdotally that the situation has worsened since March as nurseries are under increasing financial pressure.
In April, the minimum wage and social security contributions paid by employers were increased, while the temporary relief on corporate taxes introduced during the pandemic ended in England.
Mr Leitch said nurseries are also struggling to hire new staff, with people leaving the sector “in droves” for better paying jobs, feeling “exhausted and undervalued”.
Many companies have increased salaries as a result, but this is not financially sustainable, he added. Others have been forced to reduce their working hours or close suddenly due to staff shortages.
According to their own statements, more than 60 messages from mothers whose daycare was closed at short notice had been sent pregnant-then-screwed in the past few weeks.
The group’s campaign manager, Lauren Fabianski, said many were concerned about working without childcare.
She added that some kindergartens are fully booked until November next year, making it difficult to find places anywhere.
A government spokeswoman said it had spent more than £4bn to help families with childcare costs in each of the last five years and there had not been a significant number of parents unable to get one to secure a childcare place.
She added that the government has also announced additional funding for local authorities to increase hourly rates for childcare providers and is increasing funding to help employers with their costs.
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