These tough COVID years have highlighted how the lack of availability and affordability of childcare is affecting hiring, retention and productivity.
Businesses cannot thrive without productive employees, and parents cannot keep their jobs or thrive without a robust early childhood system to care for their children while they work.
This ties directly to what we at the Rockford Chamber of Commerce constantly hear from our members that there is one specific issue that is keeping them up at night: the workforce.
Whether it’s retaining their current talent or attracting new, qualified talent, the workforce remains a major concern of the business world.
The problem is both immediate — a need for labor NOW — and long-term — the need for labor to fill the gaps left by baby boomer retirements or to grow the business.
While the workforce problem is multifaceted, a driving culprit is lack of access to affordable, reliable childcare, forcing professionals into stressful, missed workdays or, worse, an unwanted exit from the workforce.
At the macro level, the economic impact of the childcare crisis is staggering.
Childcare challenges for infants and young children drain an estimated $4.9 billion from the Illinois economy each year, according to a new report from ReadyNation. At the national level, the total cost of inadequate infant and young child care is US$122 billion.
These numbers are more than double the 2018 level and reflect only the limitations in childcare for children under the age of 3.
But childcare is more than just a solution for today’s workers.
It is also important to invest in quality early childhood education to develop tomorrow’s workforce. A highly qualified workforce of the future begins in early childhood with the acquisition of the necessary skills.
Both technical (or academic) skills and soft (or executive) skills that employers seek — such as perseverance, cooperation, and interpersonal skills — have their roots in early childhood, when quality programs can best prepare children for success in school, work, and Life.
Alignment Rockford focuses on these issues and serves as the organizer of the Ready to Learn Early Childhood Coalition in Rockford.
In our work with families, service providers and other organizations in the Rockford area, we encounter an ongoing need for quality childcare options and other support for parents and primary caregivers of children under the age of 5.
These supports can take the form of childcare grants from the state, or employer benefits such as increased paid leave for working parents, flexible working hours, or remote work opportunities.
Investing in the care and education of young children and in the well-being of their families has great benefits for the community as children who enter kindergarten ready to learn are much more likely to achieve academic success and have better employment opportunities, higher income power and a better life lives have results.
The early childhood crisis facing our community is hardly limited to Rockford; However, we as a community can take action and change the course of our future by addressing these needs in a meaningful and coordinated way.
As President of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce and CEO of Alignment Rockford, we see the needs of the youngest members of our community, the need to support parents of young children, and ways in which business leaders can be involved.
That’s why we’re members of the ReadyNation network of leaders and encourage employers in Rockford to join us in supporting solutions to the childcare crisis.
Ongoing work at the local level is vital, but we must also encourage state and federal policymakers to invest in early childhood care and education. Governor Pritzker’s proposal to invest in the early childhood system gives us hope that the state is moving in the right direction.
Helping to strengthen our workforce and economy – today and tomorrow – is truly everyone’s job.
Emily Klonicki is Managing Director of Alignment Rockford. Caitlin Pusateri is President of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce.
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