Chapter 3Workplaces and employment
3.1One of the most significant factors determining the quality and safety of care in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector is employment practices and conditions. Evidence to the inquiry noted that many educators and staff in the sector are hardworking, dedicated and passionate about their roles. However, workforce instability and conditions, including staff ratios, qualifications and turnover, directly affect the safety and quality of services and children’s experience of early childhood education and care.
3.2According to data from Jobs and Skills Australia cited by the Department of Education, as of August 2025, the ECEC workforce comprised approximately 270 300 educators, early childhood teachers and centre managers. The majority of these work in urban centres, while regional and remote communities are often serviced by mobile services and services provided by Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.
3.3Previous modelling by HumanAbility and Jobs and Skills Australia indicated that in 2024 there was a shortfall of around 21 000 qualified ECEC professionals to meet existing demand, and with the expansion of universal and subsidised ECEC initiatives, Australia would require an additional 18 000 new staff in the coming years. For every advertised vacancy, there are only around 1.6 suitably qualified applicants (and this issue may be even more acute in some regional and remote areas). In short, evidence to the inquiry indicated that despite recent improvements, there are insufficient qualified ECEC professionals to meet existing demand, let alone support more sustainable working conditions.
3.4While some stakeholders advocated for expansion towards a more universal model of early childhood education and care, the committee notes that evidence before it raises serious questions about the system’s capacity to safely sustain such expansion in its current form. The Productivity Commission cautioned that reform must be staged ‘to avoid overwhelming the system through expansion that is not well planned or coordinated, crowding out the children and families who need ECEC the most and delivering poor quality services’. The Productivity Commission also noted that ‘the availability of a suitably qualified workforce should be a key determinate’ of reform timing. Proceeding with rapid expansion in the context of an already constrained workforce, fragmented regulatory oversight, and declining public trust risks compounding, rather than resolving, the structural issues identified throughout this inquiry.
3.5The committee learned that some employment practices can increase the risk of quality and safety issues, such as high reliance on transient or unvetted staff, and lack of supervision or performance management. On the other hand, good practices, such as thorough pre-employment screening, ongoing training and supportive oversight, significantly enhance child safety. This chapter provides an overview of issues raised about ECEC workplaces and employment, focusing on:
The impact of the pace of recent changes to industrial relations;
Government workforce strategy;
Recruitment practices;
Vacancies, high turnover and understaffing;
Qualifications and training;
Wages; and
Workforce conditions.
Pace of recent industrial relations changes in the sector
3.6Some evidence concerned the impact of the rapid pace of industrial relations changes in the sector. For example, the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) stated that since 2022, providers ‘have been subject to rapid and extensive change in the workplace relations framework’. Further, ‘many of these changes have been the catalyst for [Fair Wok Commission] proceedings which have had a direct and significant bearing on the ECEC sector’. Employers have also entered workplace instruments to access the Worker Retention Payment. Ai Group noted that these developments ‘have necessarily demanded a significant amount of employers’ time and resources’.
3.7Ai Group submitted that it ‘is important for the committee to recognise the considerable tension and strain this presents for the ECEC sector, in the context of quality and safety regulation and outcomes’.
Overarching government workforce strategy
3.8The Australian Government’s National Children’s Education and Care Workforce Strategy 2022–2031 focuses on the following six areas for the next decade:
Professional recognition;
Data and evidence;
Qualifications and career pathways;
Attraction and retention;
Leadership and capability; and
Wellbeing.
3.9The committee received mixed views on the strategy. Professor Karen Thorpe was critical of it, describing it as having ‘limited vision’ and focusing ‘on working within the poor work conditions’ of the sector ‘rather than recognising the need for drastically improved conditions’.
3.10The South Australian Government noted that the strategy is unfunded, arguing that much ‘of the Australian Government’s effort is on the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan which does not extend to ECEC, further exacerbating the gap between early childhood educators and the broader teaching workforce’. The Australian Education Union also considered that the strategy ‘provides a pathway towards increasing the recruitment and retention of early childhood educators in the long term’. However, ‘there has been limited resourcing attached to the implementation of the strategy compared to urgent and rapid response and generous incentives provided to address the teacher shortages in schools’. The Union called for additional funds to ensure that the ‘… strategy is implemented to support the recruitment of the 16,000 educators and 8,000 teachers that the strategy identifies as being required’.
3.11Other issues raised concerning overarching government strategy for the ECEC workforce included the following:
No record of National Cabinet considering ECEC workforce issues between December 2022 and around October 2025.
A call for the Australian Government to develop and implement an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Early Years Workforce Strategy with the aim of achieving full workforce parity in remuneration and employment.
Recruitment practices
3.12While submitters and witnesses acknowledged the importance of Working With Children Checks (WWCCs), evidence argued that recruitment practices overly rely on them. The Early Learning and Care Council of Australia pointed to ‘very variable recruitment practices and perhaps an overreliance on the working-with-children checks’. Their Chief Executive Officer argued that even if WWCCs become more consistent nationally, they do not ‘actually assess your suitability to care for children… The expectation would be that we need all providers to do much more rigorous recruitment’.
3.13The Australian Childhood Foundation noted the importance of proper recruitment processes, arguing that ‘lapses in hiring diligence have occurred. There have been cases where educators who had reg flags in past employment… were hired by another service that did not thoroughly check references or was not informed of the circumstances’. The Foundation argued that ‘if every provider rigorously checks at least the last two employers and inquires specifically about any child safety concerns, it becomes much harder for an offender to hide’. They called for ‘regulators to embed expectations’ of practices like values-based interviewing techniques and recruitment training.
3.14The Chief Executive Officer and Founder of BubbaDesk told the committee that they believe in preventing people who may impact child safety from working ‘before they even get into our environment. It’s at the hiring process. I believe it should be at the moment when people are trying to enter and gain access to even do a cert III’. She further emphasised the importance of ‘a rigorous interview process’.
3.15Y Australia called for legislated rigorous recruitment and probation processes, including screening, onboarding and monitored reviews, and cited the United Kingdom’s Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework, which includes new requirements on job references, as an example.
3.16A recurring theme in evidence before the committee was the structural tension between employment law protections and the child safety obligations of ECEC providers, a tension that, in practice, operates to the detriment of children.
3.17Mr Luke Twyford, Principal Commissioner of the Queensland Family and Child Commission, told the committee that Australian legal structures have created an environment in which the privacy rights of adults are afforded greater protection than children’s right not to be sexually abused. The practical consequence for providers is stark—acting on a genuine but unsubstantiated concern about a worker exposes the employer to significant financial and reputational liability, and when providers are unwilling to bear that liability, it is children who absorb the risk. Mr Twyford drew a pointed contrast: a parent who feels uneasy about a person caring for their child is free to act on that instinct, while an ECEC provider bound by employment law is not.
3.18Ms Samantha Page, Chief Executive Officer of Early Childhood Australia, described the position of centre directors who observe behaviours of genuine concern (such as a worker pushing professional boundaries, isolating a child, or cultivating an inappropriately familiar relationship with a family) but where no direct evidence of harm exists. In some jurisdictions, these behaviours would meet the threshold of a reportable conduct scheme; in others, where no such scheme exists or the bar is set higher, they would not. The result, as Ms Page put it, is that providers need to be confident they can act on those red flags without being in breach of industrial relations law, and currently, many are not. She noted that even large and experienced providers had described the difficulty of exiting an employee where concerns were real but fell short of a demonstrable breach of conduct.
3.19The Queensland Child Death Review Board’s In Plain Sight report identified a specific legislative gap that compounds this problem. Unlike the Working with Children (Risk Management and Screening) Act 2000 (Qld), which explicitly provides that an employer must comply with its requirements to end a person’s employment despite any other Act, law, industrial award or agreement, no equivalent provision exists in the Education and Care Services National Law. There is no mechanism within the National Law that places child safety obligations above industrial law, or that protects a provider who dismisses an educator on the basis of allegations of misconduct that have not been formally substantiated. The protection that exists in one child-facing legislative instrument has not been replicated in the one that governs the ECEC sector directly.
3.20The In Plain Sight report into the offending of Ashley Paul Griffith found multiple instances in which his employment at various centres was ceased through termination, redundancy, failed probation, or requests not to return, but where almost no information was recorded or communicated as to why. The Board concluded this was potentially indicative of a pattern of centres moving a problem on rather than confronting it, driven by fear of defamation liability, Fair Work exposure, and reputational risk.
3.21The information-sharing dimension of this problem was brought before the committee by Mr Glen Hurley, Chief Executive Officer of Affinity Education Group, who confirmed that providers who hold genuine concerns about a worker, but in the absence of charges or formal findings, are legally unable to disclose those concerns to a prospective employer. He stated that ‘We’re not willingly holding back’.
3.22Mrs Gabrielle Sinclair, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), acknowledged this issue forms part of a broader framework requiring reform, and observed that the establishment of a comprehensive National Educator Register would create the conditions under which this challenge could begin to be addressed, by bringing transparency to workforce movements that are currently, in effect, invisible to prospective employers and regulators alike.
Vacancies, high staff turnover and understaffing
3.23As noted, as of August 2025, there were approximately 270 300 educators, early childhood teachers and centre managers employed in Australia. The Department of Education reported that this represented an increase of 22 per cent (48 800 staff) since May 2022, while Vacancy Index data showed that job vacancies in the sector had decreased by 12.36 per cent year on year. The Department of Education argued that these ‘trends suggest that government measures … are supporting retention and growth in the sector’.
3.24Workforce instability is reported to have a direct impact on quality and safety in early childhood education and care. As the Front Project argued, workforce ‘instability is one of the most pressing risks to quality and safety’ in the sector. In particular, high staff ‘turnover, casualisation, and reliance on agency staff undermine continuity of relationships for children, increase pressure on permanent educators, and weaken regulatory compliance’. Constant staff turnover makes it more difficult for children to build secure attachments, and for staff to recognise concerning patterns of behaviour or harm in their colleagues.
3.25Understaffing is linked to increased child safety issues and declining service quality, and may be correlated with increased behavioural incidents. It can impact existing staff, who may be unable to take a lunch break, or be unwilling to take annual leave if other qualified employees are casuals, because they may be held responsible for what occurs on the premises even when not present.
3.26Of note, many staff with degree level qualifications, according to Professor Karen Thorpe, ‘do not view centre-based childcare as their optimal employment destination, a finding not surprising given the shorter work hours, holiday conditions and pay levels in stand-alone preschool settings and the early years of school’.
3.27The Australian Childhood Foundation pointed to reports of ‘extremely high turnover’ in the sector, with the majority of workers considering leaving the profession, in large part because of ‘inadequate pay for the responsibilities shouldered’. The Australian Services Union reported that more than a third of ECEC workers are leaving their jobs each year, with turnover rates significantly higher in rural and remote areas. While the committee did not seek to separately analyse outside school hours care from ECEC in the years before school, there are clearly important distinctions for these workforces. Outside School Hours Council of Australia reported that the average duration of employment among its members for an outside school hours care (OSHC) educator is just over 1.6 years.
Staffing waivers
3.28A staffing or service waiver ‘allows an approved education and care service to be taken to comply with requirement/s of the prescribed National Regulations’. The Department of Education informed the committee that the proportion of services with a staffing waiver declined by 9.2 per cent over the year from July 2024 to July 2025. ECEC services can apply for staffing waivers for the following:
Educators who are under 18 to be supervised (centre-based only);
Educator to child ratios in centre-based services;
Number of children who can be educated and cared for in family day care;
General educator qualifications in centre-based services;
Family day care educator and coordinator qualifications; and
Requirements for the number of approved places per early childhood teacher in centre-based care.
3.29The Department of Education gave evidence at the Sydney hearing on 10 December 2025 that waivers are granted ‘by state and territory regulators, who clearly monitor what they’re giving them for, and child safety and quality is at the heart of the original decision’. Most waivers relate to early childhood teachers.
3.30The Front Project acknowledged recent reductions in the proportion of services with a staffing waiver, but noted that ‘waiver rates remain disproportionately high in certain jurisdictions and service types, particularly in long day care and in rural and remote communities, where attracting and retaining qualified educators … continues to be a significant challenge’.
3.31The United Workers Union (UWU) argued that staffing ‘waivers continue to be at unacceptable levels for child safety and quality of early education’, given rates are particularly high in some jurisdictions. The UWU contended that the ‘waiver rate is more than double what it was ten years ago… [I]n the second quarter of 2025 it is 7.4%. Whilst it is an improvement from a high of 10% in 2023, this should still be considered unacceptable’. The UWU considered that staffing ‘waivers should only be a last resort and strictly time limited’.
3.32The UWU also revealed that according to a survey it conducted in June and July 2025, 77 per cent of more than 3,000 early childhood educators reported that their centre was operating below minimum staffing requirements at least weekly, with 42 per cent reporting that it was happening daily. Respondents reported impacts to the quality of early learning, emotional support and an increase in the number of children hurting themselves or others.
3.33Longreach Regional Council called for ‘targeted incentives and support for regional providers to attract and retain qualified early childhood educators, including support for professional development and career progression’.
‘Under the roof’ ratios
3.34A further issue related to understaffing raised concerned ‘under the roof’ ratios, in which staff ratios are calculated based on the total number of staff on the premises, rather than in a room. The UWU reported that some providers are using “‘under the roof ratios” to move educators between rooms, and even count educators not on the floor, towards their minimum staffing requirements’. As a result, there is ‘immense pressure on those educators in the room to supervise, deliver early learning, complete documentation and paperwork requirements, even clean… [This] is contributing to child safety risks and educator stress and burn out’.
3.35The Victorian Government called for a national review of staffing arrangements in ECEC services, to include consideration of:
A ‘four eyes’ rule requiring two adults visible to each other while present with children;
Removing or amending the ‘roofline’ rule; and
Tightening rules permitting ‘working towards qualification’ staff so that there are more qualified eyes on children at any one time.
3.36On 27 February 2026, the Australian Government released the December 2025 report of ACECQA’s Rapid Assessment of Child Safe Practices. The report found:
There is ‘significant variability in how educator to child ratios are interpreted and applied across service types, with a particular focus on the use of what is colloquially called ‘under the roof’ ratio calculations and the risk this has on child safety’;
There has been ‘a misinterpretation of what is required, at a minimum, for quality child and educator interactions as was expected and designed by the [National Quality Framework] for an effective education sector’;
Practices have emerged ‘where a single educator or teacher is solely responsible for children without another educator or teacher being able to see or hear the children and the educator or teacher’; and
Some approved providers have applied pressure on and/or offered incentives to staff to only plan and implement ratios ‘across the service’.
3.37The report called for changes to the National Law and the National Quality Standard, and for the government to clarify ‘that “across the service” ratios should be used in exceptional circumstances only’. The Minister for Early Childhood Education announced the same day the report was released that the Australian Government had accepted the report’s recommendations and would be ‘banning the unsafe practice of misuse of under-the-roofline ratios. And we will also accept their recommendation to better define adequate supervision’.
Workforce composition
3.38The early childhood education and care workforce is overwhelmingly female (90.7 per cent according to the 2024 National Workforce Census). It has a greater representation of First Nations individuals and people born overseas relative to all occupations. Around two-thirds are in permanent employment. Almost a third work full-time hours, 29.2 per cent work short part-time hours, and 37.1 per cent work long part-time hours (greater than 19 hours and up to 34 hours).
3.39The Australian Childhood Foundation flagged a ‘concerning trend’ in the use of labour-hire firms to source educators, arguing that ‘while many are reputable, it adds a layer of complexity to vetting and accountability’. Y Australia noted that services have full child-safety obligations under the National Law, while agencies are regulated mainly for workplace law compliance.
3.40Lady Gowrie Qld submitted that when ‘profit margins are tight, some providers move to minimise staffing levels or rely heavily on casual and inexperienced workers’. This can increase the risk that younger, unqualified or under-mentored staff may lack the confidence or knowledge to identify hazards, manage incidents or respond to child needs.
3.41Evidence to the committee indicated that the use of labour hire and agency staff in the ECEC sector is, in many cases, a response to workforce shortages and operational requirements rather than a primary staffing model. Y Australia submitted Australian Competition & Consumer Commission evidence that providers, facing acute workforce shortages, are increasingly turning to casual and contract staff to fill gaps in staffing rosters.
3.42Similarly, evidence highlighted that services require the capacity to backfill leave, respond to unplanned absences, and maintain required staffing levels to ensure continuity of care. Lady Gowrie Qld noted that funding arrangements must support providers to meet these ‘real-world staffing requirements’, including the use of agency staff where necessary. Evidence from participants also indicated that casual or relief staff may be deployed across services to cover short-term absences such as sick leave or unexpected vacancies. These arrangements can play a role in maintaining service continuity, particularly in a sector experiencing persistent workforce pressures.
3.43The United Workers Union argued that reducing ‘churn and casualisation is not just a workforce issue; it’s a safety issue’.
3.44However, the Australian Childcare Alliance pointed to ‘a persistent perception that ECEC is highly casualised’ despite data suggesting ‘that most staff are employed on a permanent full-time or permanent part-time basis in centre-based daycare. Casualisation is more pronounced in Outside School Hours Care’. In particular, they argued that casualisation ‘is less than 15% in centre-based daycare’, and ‘overstating casualisation … risks undermining public trust and misdirecting policy’.
Proposed reforms
3.45Proposed reforms to ensure that safety is an utmost priority within casual workforces and among agency staff included the following:
Initiatives to promote permanent and ongoing employment arrangements; and
With regards to using labour hire agencies:
Extend child-safety, qualification, and training obligations to staffing agencies;
Accredit and monitor agencies, making them legally responsible for screening, induction and compliance;
Allow regulators to share prohibition and safety information with agencies;
Require agencies to meet the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and state/territory child safe standards;
Monitor and prevent over-reliance on agency staff to protect continuity of care; and
Restrict the use of agency staff to ensure relationship continuity for children.
Qualifications and training
3.46Submitters argued one of the biggest contributors to high quality in ECEC services is the education and training of ECEC staff. As the Productivity Commission noted, ‘effective qualification and career pathways are vital for building and maintaining an ECEC workforce’ so that they are able to deliver quality and safe services to families and children, and to ensure that talented and dedicated staff are attracted to (and retained in) the sector.
3.47The most common education, training and qualification pathways for people entering the ECEC workforce are the Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care, the Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care, the Diploma of School Age Education and Care, and the Bachelor and Master of Education (in Early Childhood or Early Childhood and Primary).
3.48The Australian Government has introduced mandatory national child safety training for all persons with management or control, nominated supervisors, persons in day-to-day charge, family day care educators and other staff, volunteers and students in the ECEC sector, from 27 February 2026.
3.49However, according to evidence received, particular barriers are preventing potential workers from completing qualifications, including the complexity and length of the qualifications, and issues with finding suitable and flexible placements that balance students’ study and life responsibilities. Further, despite teacher registration requiring minimum professional development to be completed annually, early childhood educators and directors of services are not required to complete regular professional development. Lack of paid time release for staff professional development may be a significant barrier for staff to access such programs.
3.50In regional and remote areas, there may also be limited access and options for training placements, given travel and accommodation costs and complex logistics, and limited opportunities for local mentoring, for educators wishing to work in the family day care and in-home care sector.
3.51ACECQA approves early childhood education and care qualifications under the National Quality Framework, including Certificate III, Diploma and Early Childhood Teacher level programs. It also maintains a public list of approved qualifications and decides whether programs meet national standards, including requirements around delivery, content and professional experience. Graduates of non-approved programs are not eligible to work as qualified educators or teachers in early childhood education and care services. The Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) also regulates a number of training providers that offer the Certificate III and Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care.
3.52Early Learning Association Australia submitted that ‘the combination of staffing requirements and the scale and structure of the funding system make it challenging for employers to find the time and funding to release staff to undertake professional development’. Further, the scale and scope of existing professional development support from the Commonwealth for Child Care Subsidy-funded services ‘are insufficient for the scale of the ECEC system’. The Association expressed its support for the recommendation from the Productivity Commission for governments to provide financial support for the workforce to undertake professional development.
3.53The Productivity Commission reported concerns about the quality and work readiness of graduates of existing qualifications required for entry into the sector. Early Learning Association similarly reported ‘significant concerns from its members about the impacts of low-quality training providers, and programs that are run too quickly to cover what is needed’. As a result, new staff may require significant additional support once commencing employment.
3.54One early childhood educator flagged a range of concerning issues regarding training, including:
One student being offered cash to work while on placement at a private centre, meaning her supervising educator was rarely present;
Another student in a fast-track degree was sent on placement without completing any core study on early childhood development; and
A teenager with only a basic Certificate III qualification was tasked with training other educators across multiple for-profit services.
3.55The Chief Executive Officer of SNAICC—National Voice for our Children told the committee at the Melbourne hearing of instances where Aboriginal people had been working and studying for more than 10 years ‘and didn’t have a single qualification. That was because the service providers would go up and go down … and the qualifications would adjust’. She further flagged the challenges around studying ‘because there aren’t enough people on the floor, so there’s no backfill’.
3.56SNAICC argued that in its current form, ‘the vocational system is not capable of supporting development of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ECEC workforce at levels capable of meeting demand’. SNAICC argued that innovation ‘funds … may go some way to both alleviating the pressures that childcare deserts are creating for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities’.
3.57ASQA acknowledged that it ‘has observed specific vulnerabilities across our regulatory risk priorities’ in relation to early childhood education and care. It reported that its ‘intelligence suggests non-genuine providers utilise Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), and shortened duration inappropriately and are exploiting skills shortages in the sector’. ASQA informed the committee that it is ‘closely monitoring the performance of training providers who deliver early childhood qualifications’ as a result. More than 4,000 early childhood education and care qualifications have been cancelled since October 2024, with ASQA cancelling the training providers’ registration.
3.58While many submitters were in favour of support for increased training and professional development, the Future Care Project argued that the requirement for new educators to complete 120 placement hours as part of their Certificate III is ‘a significant barrier. For prospective [family day care] educators, the requirement is unaffordable, logistically difficult in rural areas, and deters many from entering the sector’. As a result, they contended, the requirement has ‘unintentionally stifled workforce growth’ in family day care.
3.59While HumanAbility acknowledged the importance of training in leadership, mentoring and other forms of upskilling, it also noted that given ‘existing workload pressures for many in the sector, such developments must also strike the balance between the urgent need to safeguard children and not adding undue time or financial pressures on workers’, as well as maintaining adequate staffing levels.
3.60The Victorian Government noted that under ‘the National Law there is no general limit on the number or proportion of staff that can be “actively working towards” their qualifications’. They argued that ‘this measure can be misused by services to lower staff costs, to the detriment of child safety and education quality’.
Proposed reforms
3.61The committee received a multitude of recommendations for reform related to qualifications and training. While submitters outlined opportunities for professional development, the committee understood the underpinning necessity is for all higher education providers, especially publicly funded universities, VET providers, and publicly funded TAFEs, to provide evidenced-based and high-quality courses.
3.62For example, the ACT Government called for a new version of the Professional Support Coordinators program, which was funded by the Australian Government until 2016, for free, high-quality and contextual professional learning and development in each state and territory. The Salvation Army proposed a similar initiative to a Victorian Department of Health initiative whereby free training, degrees and upskilling was provided for nurses and midwives from 2023 to 2024. Other proposals in this area included structured induction and funding for mentoring for new staff, scholarships, supported trainee pathways, and funding for travel and other costs associated with centre closure or backfill because of staff attending training.
3.63In the area of the quality of education and training courses, the Front Project proposed a minimum evidence base be established for professional development. Several submitters proposed increased monitoring, oversight and transparency of Registered Training Organisations offering early childhood education and care qualifications, while the Victorian Government suggested stronger Australian Skills Quality Authority powers to address poor quality registered training organisations and to focus on training outcomes that better prepare students for working in the sector.
3.64On the matter of minimum training and qualification requirements, the National Outside School Hours Services Alliance proposed minimum onboarding and ongoing training and development for all educators.
3.65Busy Bees Early Learning Australia recommended that national core workforce standards be developed for early childhood education and care educators, modelled on the disability sector’s approach, and the Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of New South Wales called for mandatory training for all outside schools hours staff on shift to be completed within the first three months of employment, with current First Aid, CPR, asthma and anaphylaxis and child protection/mandatory reporting training delivered via a new accredited model for the outside school hours care sector.
3.66On the matter of minimum qualifications, the Remote Area Planning & Development Board called for consideration of alternative, staged training and qualification pathways for ECEC staff, including the use of a general Certificate II-level ECEC qualification, to allow educators to enter the workforce sooner under appropriate supervision, while progressively working towards a full Certificate III.
3.67The Victorian Government recommended the Australian Government review current rules for the proportion of qualifications required for a service to operate (given there is no general limit in the National Law on the number or proportion of staff who can be ‘actively working towards’ their qualifications).
Wages
3.68The committee was informed that wages and conditions for staff employed in the sector are key to addressing the attraction and retention crisis. Of note, the Fair Work Commission in early 2026 announced changes to the Children’s Services Award, including a new classification structure and changes to minimum rates of pay.
3.69Evidence suggests that there is a direct link between wages and service quality—with services with higher quality ratings typically paying staff higher wages. The Australian Childhood Foundation explained this link in further detail:
Despite the critical importance of their work, early childhood staff have historically been among the lowest-paid professionals in Australia. This reality has far-reaching consequences: difficulties in attracting and retaining skilled educators, elevated stress, and burnout levels among staff, and ultimately a negative impact on the consistency and quality of care children receive… When educators are undervalued and under-resourced, children’s wellbeing is put at risk through high turnover, understaffed rooms, and distracted or fatigued caregivers. Conversely, improving pay and conditions is likely to yield a more stable, qualified, and attentive workforce, directly benefiting children’s safety and development.
3.70Many qualified educators leave the sector for roles in schools, retail, disability support and other sectors where pay is equal or better, and working conditions may be less demanding. As the Network of Community Activities noted, entry-level outside school hours care (OSHC) educators at Level 1.1 earn around $24.95 an hour, compared to entry-level construction labourers under the Building and Construction General On-Side Award, who earn around $27–28 per hour, with no qualification requirements beyond a White Card. The Network noted that it ‘is difficult to sustain stable teams, induction programs, and mentoring when staff can leave for higher pay in roles with fewer legal responsibilities’. In addition, in the ECEC sector, ‘wage progression is minimal. Educators see little improvement without gaining formal qualifications, even if they take on the same responsibilities’.
3.71According to the Productivity Commission, a range of factors may contribute to low wages in the sector, including:
The market-based nature of the services, which can incentivise services to compete on price rather than quality;
A general reliance on awards to set pay and conditions;
Limited capacity of services to fund wage increases; and
Preconceptions about the nature and value of work in the sector.
3.72Workforce is generally the largest cost in the delivery of early childhood education and care services. For local government providers, labour costs can comprise more than 80 per cent of service expenses. Outside School Hours Council of Australia reported that labour comprises 69 per cent of the total costs for centre-based day care services and 77 per cent of total costs for OSHC services.
3.73The Australian Childcare Alliance argued that there ‘is clear evidence that many providers in the sector already heavily invest in their workforce’, with 42.1 per cent of staff across the workforce receiving pay above the award rate. More than half of staff at centre-based long daycare are paid above the award rate.
3.74Issues raised about wages for the ECEC sector included the following:
Despite the recent pay rise, there is still not parity of pay with other education sectors, and small ‘changes in income are likely not sufficient to improve financial stress’;
Remuneration in the early childhood education and care sector ‘is relatively low even when compared with sectors that require no formal qualifications, despite the significant training and responsibility expected of early educators’;
Reforms to increase pay ‘must be built upon with longer-term, structural reform to ensure educators’ pay reflects their skills and responsibilities’;
There ‘is no recognition of the specialised and complex role of nominated supervisors in the early childhood sector’, with wages not reflecting the role’s ‘high level of responsibility and liability for children’s safety’;
A considerable gap in average pay differences between not-for-profit and for-profit providers;
Staff not being paid for non-contact hours spent on compulsory documentation; and
Services employing educators working towards their diploma to meet diploma ratio requirements, but paying the educators at a lower rate and, once they have completed their diploma, terminating the educator because their wages will need to be increased.
3.75The Australian Childhood Foundation welcomed the ‘recent federal government initiative to boost wages through multi-employer bargaining in early childhood, supported by some state-funded interventions’. They stated that they:
… strongly [support] government investment in the workforce as an investment in children’s safety and development. For-profit providers must also be part of the solution; reinvesting a fair share of revenue into staff wages and training should be seen as a core responsibility, not an optional cost. One of the criticisms from the Victorian rapid review was that the market-driven model led some for-profit providers to prioritise profit margins at the expense of workforce support and quality. This cannot continue if we expect quality and safety to improve.
3.76The Early Learning Association Australia acknowledged that their members wanted to invest more in the workforce, but ‘the reality is the money must come from somewhere. Either it comes from governments, or it comes from parents (in the form of fees)’. Similarly, the Australian Childcare Alliance argued that the capacity of services ‘to raise wages is limited … [S]ervices in thin markets or in areas of market saturation do not have the same discretionary funds to do so’.
3.77Integricare noted that childcare is generally not eligible to be classified as a Public Benevolent Institution, while aged care is. As a result, ECEC workers at not-for-profit providers are unable to access salary packaging concessions, which would mean they could receive take home pay equivalent to the aged care and disability workforce. Integricare argued that this would ‘attract further skilled and dedicated workers to the not-for-profit childcare sector’.
Worker Retention Payment
3.78The Department of Education reported that the ECEC Worker Retention Payment provides for a 15 per cent wage increase for ECEC workers over two years, for staff working in Child Care Subsidy-approved, centre-based day care and outside school hours care services, who are covered by the two primary modern awards, or predominantly undertake duties described under these awards. However, the wage increase is via an opt-in grant, and is conditional on providers limiting fee increases, and engaging workers under a compliant workplace instrument. The Department of Education reported that since applications opened for the Payment in October 2024, the coverage of workers under workplace instruments has increased dramatically.
3.79Goodstart Early Learning submitted that after the wage increase, staff ‘vacancies dropped dramatically. By April 2025, sector monthly vacancies dropped below 5,000 for the first time since 2021, down 28% on the previous April’. Since May 2025, vacancies have slowly increased ‘but remain well below the levels seen in [the] previous three years’.
3.80The committee received a range of evidence outlining issues about the Worker Retention Payment. For example, the Australian Education Union considered that it is ‘unlikely that this increase alone will be sufficient to attract the required numbers of additional educators to the sector’.
3.81Early Learning Association Australia noted the Australian Government has only committed to the Worker Retention Payment until November 2026, leading to uncertainty for service planning and for the workforce regarding their future pay.
3.82The committee also heard that because the Worker Retention Payment has mandated fee caps, services cannot adequately recover the costs of increased workers compensation insurance premiums, and some providers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in internal costs to implement the Payment. Further, payments have taken significant time to be processed and are retrospective, creating cashflow pressures for services, and providers do not know how much they will receive until they receive it, because the funding formula or amount has not been disclosed.
3.83Evidence provided by the Department of Education from Supplementary Budget Estimates 2025–26 identified that 77.5 per cent of outside school hours care and centre based day care providers are covered by a submitted Worker Retention Payment application. Evidence from Early Childhood Australia at the public hearing in Sydney on 10 December indicated that some services have not signed up to the Worker Retention Payment ‘because they are concerned about the short-term nature of the grant and what might happen when that runs out, and whether wage increases will be built into’ either the Child Care Subsidy or a replacement financing mechanism. Early Childhood Australia also noted anxieties were present for providers who did apply for the grant as they got closer to the end of that grant. Early Learning Association Australia expressed similar sentiments at the public hearing in Melbourne on 17 February 2026.
3.84On the matter of the Worker Retention Payment, Family Day Care Australia noted that it had received a guarantee that a re-elected Labor Government would consider how the Payment could be extended to the family day care sector. Family Day Care Australia submitted that ‘it is exceptionally important’ that a decision is ‘expedited for both employees of family day care approved services and independent contractor educators’.
Proposed reforms
3.85Recommendations from submitters to address issues with wages in the ECEC sector included that pay and conditions should be comparable to equivalent positions in primary schools, and a call for further stakeholder consultation with the sector to establish wage structures reflecting the professional responsibilities and experience of educators in early childhood settings.
Workforce conditions
3.86Sustainable work conditions include manageable workloads, adequate staffing levels and access for staff to resources and support. The committee learned that services that invest in good employment conditions and impose reasonable workloads and rostering enable educators to focus on the care of children, rather than prioritising administrative tasks. Further, psychological safety—if staff feel comfortable raising concerns without fear of reprisal—can directly impact the reporting of incidents and suspected harm to children.
3.87However, the committee was informed that often, employment conditions ‘are not commensurate with the significant role’ that early childhood education and care ‘plays in founding our children’s futures’ at the ‘most significant time in human brain development’.
3.88The committee learned that, according to one study, more than 70 per cent of educators engage in unpaid work each week, averaging 7–9 hours.
3.89Of note, according to one submission, administration and documentation take up around 35 per cent of educators’ total work. Other evidence flagged increased administrative and reform-driven workloads.
3.90The Front Project submitted that early ‘childhood educators face some of the most hazardous working conditions of any comparable profession’, with injury and workers’ compensation data indicating the claim rate of ECEC workers is almost double the average across all industries—significantly higher than claims from workers in the construction industry, machinery and equipment manufacturing industry, and preschool teachers and centre managers.
3.91Other evidence highlighted unsustainable workloads, low job satisfaction, and overtime being worked to meet ratios and service needs. The Front Project reported services are increasingly relying on trainees, who must spend 20 per cent of their paid time in off-the-job learning, increasing pressure on services, along with significant time spent by experienced staff on recruitment, onboarding and supervising trainees.
3.92The Australian Education Union considered that one of the challenges to improving wages and conditions for workers in the sector ‘is that employers and Government seek to deflect responsibility to each other’. The Union further contended that investing ‘in educators’ time and careers requires a funding model that does not encourage providers to manage costs by cutting over-ratio time and undervaluing planning, preparation, and supervision effort’.
Proposed reforms
3.93Recommendations from submitters to address issues raised about workforce conditions included the following:
Introduce mandatory Workload Impact Assessments (similar to Teacher Workload Impact Assessments contained in the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan) and a review of excessive documentation;
Training and clear advice and support to address violence in the workplace, including violence by young children;
A minimum of five hours of non-contact time allocated per educator per week to enable quality program planning and collaborative practice;
Permanent relief educators to maintain ratios, provide breaks and support programming time; and
Additional sick leave entitlements.