This article provides an overview of child care employment, identifying its key characteristics and issues impeding the development of a skilled and stable workforce to meet the need for quality early care and education services. Characteristics of child care jobs are summarized, including information about poverty-level earnings, poor benefits, unequal opportunity, and high turnover. Market pressures that depress wages in this sector are explored with particular attention to the impact of welfare reform. Also reviewed are institutional barriers to improving child care jobs, such as insufficient funding, lack of organizational representation, a stark resistance to national program standards, and unsupportive reimbursement and funding policies. The article concludes with highlights of current initiatives to improve child care jobs, including the North Carolina scholarship program, the U.S. Army Child Development Services' Caregiver Personnel Pay Plan, Head Start quality improvement efforts, mentoring and apprentice programs, grant programs, and union and community organizing.
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