On any weekday morning in Geelong, kids are strapped into car seats, parents scramble for missing shoes and everyone rushes to drop their kids at childcare before heading into work. Except for some families, the morning stress starts long before missing shoes. Imagine months spent on waitlists, restructuring work hours, or relying on grandparents to step in because there’s nowhere else for your child to go.
The morning chaos isn’t much easier on the inside of our childcare centres either. Educators who love what they do are burnt-out from covering rooms, staying late, and running on empty while trying to provide every child with the attention they deserve.
Centres all over Greater Geelong aren’t struggling to create demand — they’re struggling to have enough people. When it’s hard to find and keep qualified staff members, childcare centres are affected right down to their opening hours and enrolments, which in turn impacts families who need those services to work and be part of the community.
Let’s talk about it. Why is there a childcare workforce shortage in Geelong? And what can we do, right here in our community, to support educators, centres and families.
Opportunities to Strengthen the Childcare Workforce
It can seem strange to talk about launching a career when there’s still work to be done encouraging people to join the sector. For Geelong residents though, entering the workforce with a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education is a very real way to start your journey. Childcare needs are increasing all over Armstrong Creek, Lara and the Surf Coast corridor. Because of this, the early learning industry is one of the few where you can start taking on responsibility from day one.
This creates new opportunities for qualified candidates. While not every Certificate III will lead to a paid position, it’s becoming more common to find jobs with mentoring and on-the-job training as well as defined career paths that were harder to find previously.
Around Geelong, we’re seeing centres hungry to offer placements and support new educators with ideas like mentoring, flexible starts and local vacancies so you can start work near your home study area. For parents returning to work or individuals thinking about changing career paths, stability is an incredibly important factor. Knowing that you can start work close to home and not ‘jump back into the deep end’ is invaluable.
Once you’re in the door, there’s room to grow. Early childhood educators who want to progress often move into positions with more responsibility, take on specialised roles or study while they work. Whether that’s becoming a room leader, focusing on an area of early learning you’re passionate about or aiming for a senior position down the track – when you’re gaining valued experience in a sector that needs you, there’s plenty of opportunity for advancement.
From this angle, early childhood education in Geelong becomes less about plugging vacancies and more about opening doors. Showing prospective educators there’s room for advancement (and jobs available now) is a huge part of growing the workforce. When more people understand that childcare can be a career with momentum, flexibility and room to grow, we all win.
Children benefit from qualified, consistent teachers. Centres benefit from long-term staff members. And educators get to grow right alongside the kids they teach.
Why Childcare Staffing Matters to Geelong Families
Reliable childcare shouldn’t be considered a luxury for families around Geelong, it’s essential. For working parents getting back into the workforce, parents on shift work or parents simply wanting to settle into routines, you rely on childcare centres to be able to open regularly and provide consistent care.
When your local centre can’t open due to staff shortages causing long waitlists, limited days the centre can open or even last-minute notifications, it doesn’t just affect you and your family. It impacts your work and your ability to work. For many parents juggling the demands of a new baby, reliable childcare provides invaluable support for parents. Knowing that you have childcare sorted gives you reassurance, routine and helps you feel like you have someone to lean on.
Understanding the Childcare Workforce Gap
While sometimes numbers on a page can fail to convey the whole story, getting to grips with why Geelong’s early learning workforce is undersized can also help us understand ways the local community can better support educators and improve staff retention long-term.
What’s Driving Staff Shortages Across Early Learning
Working in early learning has changed dramatically over the last decade. Educators are being asked to do hands-on care for children whilst undertaking curriculum planning, administration, and satisfying ever-evolving compliance standards. Combine this with a passion for wanting to work with kids and sometimes the workload can feel overwhelming if your centre isn’t able to provide a stable support system, flexible hours and professional development pathways.
For many educators the decision to leave isn’t because they no longer want to teach children. More often than not they’re asking themselves: can I build a life, future and wellbeing doing this career long-term?
Why Regional Communities Like Geelong Are Feeling It More
Population booms in communities such as Armstrong Creek, Lara and Belmont have meant demand has outgrown the childcare workforce in Geelong. With limited training facilities and talent pools, coupled with competition from Melbourne-based positions, it can be difficult for local providers to find qualified educators. This means regional centres must get creative in order to build a support network for their educators by implementing mentorships and setting out clear career pathways.
The Real-World Impact on Families, Educators and Centres
Childcare centres in Geelong are under pressure from operational stress. Teacher vacancies means some centres have been forced to close rooms or place restrictions on enrolments or even cut programs. Consistency of care is vital to both children and families and these struggles affect communities beyond individual families.
Teacher shortages also impact educators and their leadership teams who work hard to provide safe and compliant care. Initiatives such as the child protection boost are investing in centres by providing relief through additional trained teachers and targeted funding to help ease the pressure on local centres. By providing financial support and ensuring centres are adequately staffed, we can improve safety, support teachers and help centres remain open and providing quality early learning.
What’s Happening in Geelong Right Now
Population growth in Geelong is bringing both opportunities and challenges. Families are moving into Geelong’s newest suburbs such as Charlemont quicker than ever before. This leads to additional stress being put on infrastructure as well as higher demand for child care. Housing affordability and availability also affects staffing as teachers may either struggle to find a place to live close to their centre or commute from smaller towns outside of Geelong. Population growth, housing stress and skills availability create a unique challenge for child care providers in Geelong that cannot be resolved overnight.
Along with attracting educators to Geelong, keeping quality educators in Geelong also takes more than posting a job ad. Child care centres are working hard to provide support and a sense of community to their team members and offer opportunities for career paths. Like many industries in Geelong they also have to compete with the pay rates and shift requirements of neighbouring industries.
Implementing scholarships that focus on Geelong, partnering with TAFE and Universities and promoting our four new Geelong kinders through training campaigns are just some ways we are hoping to attract people to the child care industry. Providing child care centres with incentives, a professional network and bespoke training opportunities that take into consideration some of the barriers Geelong providers have faced will help improve both retention and attraction.
Population growth in Geelong isn’t just a numbers game, it’s about ensuring we have a community workforce that can support our booming city and provide educators with opportunities to continue their careers here.
Supporting the People Who Care for Geelong’s Children
Why care about people? Well, because at the end of the day children aren’t numbers on a spreadsheet; they’re loved by someone. Children in Geelong rely on the extraordinary educators, centre staff and support teams they spend their days with to build their first experiences, confidence and curiosity for learning.
Supporting our early childhood educators isn’t rocket science either. Once we listen to what they need, whether that’s training and mentoring, or a pay rise and recognition of their skills, we can offer them the tools to not only enter but stay in the sector.
If families, educators, centres and local programs all work together we can achieve amazing things. Children have access to quality, reliable and consistent care. Educators have the support they need to do their best by children and families who can feel confident sending their kids to be their best selves knowing they’re safe.
Imagine if Geelong invested in initiatives like local training partnerships, industry workforce programs and the child protection boost? We can create a childcare system that works for Geelong families now and into the future.
Let’s focus on the people who care for our children instead of vacancies and ratios.
