This capacity study on the workforce needs for Australia’s Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector provides critical evidence, insights, and recommendations as appropriate to support current and future workforce planning, including a detailed understanding of the current state and future needs of the sector’s workforce, with a focus on attraction and retention. 

The study establishes a comprehensive overview of the sector’s challenges, detailing 28 key findings and makes 41 recommendations on a suggested path forward that not only addresses current challenges, but builds strong foundations for rewarding ECEC careers.

It will support the development of Government strategy and vision on early years education and care of Australia’s children. It focuses on ECEC workforce and skills issues, to complement the broader scope of other inquiries being undertaken in this space.

Key findings

• The current ECEC workforce would likely need to grow by an extra 8 per cent to satisfy current estimated unmet demand for early childhood services and another 8 per cent to meet unmet demand for qualified workers.
• ECEC remuneration is low compared to other competing occupations, which presents a significant disincentive to entry and accelerates attrition.
• International students have been a recently increasing cohort, particularly in early childhood teaching courses, it is important to ensure that supports are in place to support them and their workplaces.
• A key barrier to workforce entry and retention is that ECEC workplaces may be located at a considerable distance from workers’ homes, including in metropolitan settings where there is lack of affordable housing where there is the highest density of service provision.