New analysis by the TUC (Trades Union Congress) suggests that increasing the national minimum wage to £10 an hour would give 173,000 childcare workers a pay rise.
At the moment, the national minimum and national living wage is set at £8.91 per hour for workers aged 23 and over, £8.36 for those aged 21 to- 22 and £6.56 for workers aged 18 to- 20, while those under 18 receive £4.62. The rates are set to rise in April, but will still fall short of a minimum of £10 an hour for employees in the highest age bracket.
It shows that women (160,0000) and younger childcare workers across the UK would gain the most from the increase. Regionally, around one in four (23 per cent) of workers in the South East would benefit and around one in six (16 per cent) in the South West.
The union body argues that ‘investing in good quality, affordable childcare would support working parents and help the sector recover from the pandemic.’
It calls on the Government to commit to an ‘urgent cash boost’ for the sector - similar to the financial help given to transport networks – to give childcare workers better wages, and a long-term settlement to make sure childcare is affordable and available for families.
The TUC estimates that introducing a £10 an hour minimum wage for all childcare workers would cost the Treasury £92 million. Previous research carried out by the union showed that reforming Capital Gains Tax could raise up to £17bn a year.
'Poverty pay in childcare is a disgrace'
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said, ‘Every worker should be paid a living wage – not least when they are looking after our precious children and grandchildren.
‘Poverty pay in childcare is a disgrace – especially when parents are struggling to pay huge costs.
‘It’s time to raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour now, and make employers sit round the table with unions in each sector to negotiate fair pay deals.’
Voice community, the education and early years section of Community Union, welcomed the TUC’s call, blaming low pay for the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector.
National officer Helen Osgood said, ‘It’s a great injustice that highly trained and experienced early years professionals, often educated to degree level, can earn more in unskilled jobs.
‘The early years workforce is predominately female and young, so this is an equalities issue too.
‘They’ve gone above and beyond to makes sure nurseries stayed open through the pandemic. They shouldn’t have to leave their vocation and stack supermarket shelves to make ends meet.
‘Current funding levels are not sufficient, which increases costs for parents and makes it difficult for employers to pay higher wages. We therefore welcome the TUC’s call for increased funding for the sector.
‘For too long the early years have been treated as the poor relation when it comes to Government funding, support and policies – overlooked, pushed to the back of the queue or included as an after-thought. This has got to stop.
‘Increased pay is needed to keep highly trained, quality staff in the profession and attract new staff. They deserve a proper national salary and career structure.’
The National Day Nurseries Association said that 'years of underfunding has undermined nurseries' efforts to improve staff salaries.'
Chief executive Purnima Tanuku explained, 'The early years sector has struggled with a recruitment and retention crisis for years now, made much worse by Covid absences which have led to room closures or whole nurseries closing temporarily because they don’t have the right staff to operate safely.
'Nurseries are always telling us that they want to reward and recognise the brilliant work that their staff do on a daily basis. They also want to be able to encourage staff progression through better pay for higher qualified or more experienced staff members. But years of chronic underfunding of the early years entitlement has undermined their efforts to improve staff salaries.
'From April funding rates are due to rise by a maximum of 3.9 per cent but the National Living Wage alone will be 6.6 per cent higher and inflation is shooting up to at least 6 per cent this year.
A Government spokesperson said,'The Government is making work pay, recently announcing the biggest ever increase in the National Living Wage that will see the annual earnings of full-time workers on this wage rise by more than £1,000.
'We are increasing the rates childcare providers receive for the government’s free childcare entitlement and have invested more than £3.5 billion on early years entitlements in each of the past three years.'
