Workforce Council

Children's Services

Children's services are provided by a variety of private, not-for-profit and a small number of government organisations across Queensland. These range from small facilities with only limited staff, to some of Queensland's largest employers who operate many services across the state and employ hundreds of workers. The not-for-profit sector represents nearly 75% of children's services in Queensland.

Currently in Queensland there are about 2,566 licensed child care services. Of these 1,577 are Long Day Care Centres, 86 are Family Day Care schemes, 592 are Outside School Hours Care services, 357 Kindergartens and 40 Limited Hours Care services. There are also 24 In-home care services with approximately 2,970 home-based educators. There are no statistics available on the number of playgroups, adjunct care facilities or nannies as these numbers change constantly. Wages in the sector are comparatively low and this impacts significantly on attraction and retention of workers.

According to the 2010 National Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce Census, “94.4 % of the national early childhood education and care workforce were females; with males most strongly represented amongst outside school hours care (15.4%) and vacation care (17.3%) services. The median age for women was 36, however “almost two thirds of the workforce in preschools (65.6%) and family day care services (63.3%) were over 40 years of age”.

For more information view the 2012 Industry Skills and Workforce Development Report - Children's Services summary