Excerpts
Key Points:
As of late 2025, payroll employment in Canada’s formal child care industry (excluding Quebec) was up 48% from its 2021 level, after the federal government announced its national child care program.
Outside Quebec, the sector represents 1.0% of total payroll employment, up from 0.7% before the 2021 policy changes. However, that share remains lower than Quebec’s 1.7% (where a similar policy has been in place for over two decades), suggesting further job growth is needed for the system to meet demand.
Job vacancies for early childhood educators more than doubled in the year after the federal policy was announced, but most of that increase has since reversed. Though weekly earnings of employees in the industry are still nearly a third lower than the economy-wide average, outside of Quebec, they grew at a strong 6.7% average annual rate between 2021 and 2025, likely helping attract and retain workers.
Even as the staffing bottleneck has eased, waitlists of families seeking childcare persist, highlighting the need for further growth in the raw number and size of childcare establishments to ease the shortage.
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Waiting game
Despite strong job growth, ongoing waitlists highlight the continued shortage of Canadian childcare spaces at their new, lower price. The cool-off in job openings suggests that staffing issues themselves have become less of a bottleneck in service provision. Instead, hiring will now depend on further growth in the number and size of childcare establishments themselves. However, the relatively large size of Quebec’s sector compared to the rest of Canada suggests many provinces have a ways to go. In the meantime, many parents who’d otherwise utilize subsidized childcare in the formal sector will have to rely on the informal or unsubsidized operators, family help, or cut back on their own work hours, to provide care themselves.