Child Care Workers Quitting Over Delta

From the Atlantic:

Rasheed Malik, an associate director of research at the Center for American Progress, told me that the contagiousness of Delta and cases of breakthrough infections are prompting many child-care providers to reconsider their line of work. “The Delta variant has really changed the calculus for many people. They saw this coming fall as the light at the end of the tunnel. Now it’s looking like last fall,” Malik said. “It’s a lot of uncertainty piled on uncertainty piled on risk for child-care workers right now.”

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About 35 percent of child-care workers lost their job early in the pandemic, and only about two-thirds have returned to work, according to Malik. Many of these workers—including employees of day-care programs, part-time babysitters, and full-time nannies—were already hesitant to resume their job and expose themselves to the coronavirus. Now Delta has heightened that feeling. Prior to the pandemic, Sittercity.com, an online platform that matches families and babysitters, had an average of one sitter for every five families seeking care. During the pandemic, that ratio got worse, dropping to one sitter for every 10 families. By the end of July, the ratio was 1 to 14, Zenobia Moochhala, the site’s CEO, told me.

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