The General Assembly’s Early Childhood Development Task Force heard Tuesday from companies offering on-site childcare, as well as Chamber of Commerce officials, on improving workforce participation in the state.
Sandy Nott, Vice President of Administration for Toyota Motor Manufacturing, told the panel it was important to have the facility at the company’s Georgetown plant, which employs nearly 10,000 people.
“We believe it’s an important benefit for our team members’ peace of mind when it comes to childcare while working,” she testified. “The building is about 25,000 square feet with 16 classrooms one STEM room and exercise room for appropriate-age activities.”
Nott said the facility has been around since 1993 and currently have 179 children of employees enrolled, with a waiting list of 88. “Certainly, our open position of nine teachers is contributing to that as we struggle to find teachers interested in employment in this area.”
She stated they are a large company, available to offer this service on a shared cost basis with employees, which loses the company $1-2 million a year. “There are many businesses in our supply chain that don’t, and it takes just one missing part on our vehicles to impact our ability to produce. We are here today advocating for early childhood development to support our workforce.”
Twyla Burdette, director of the Rockcastle Hospital Child Development Center, said they have a similar service for the 824 employees of their hospital, with 120 children participating. “The cost for childcare is based on the employee’s salary. We currently serve children from six different counties, from 6:30 a. m. to 7:30 p. m., five days a week.”
She said operating the center is not about making money. “You need to expect losses, because you will have them, as we do nearly every year. But the positives outweigh the negatives, as the average cost of losing an employee is equal to a year’s salary. We don’t want to lose them, we want to retain them.”
Burdette described one advantage for employees having the center at a hospital. Their children can be seen for therapy on site, whether it’s physical, OT, speech therapy, they can do that while their parents are at work.”
Charles Aull with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce noted that part of the lack of workforce participation in the state is due to parents having to care for children.
“Recent data says there are around 45,000-50,000 Kentuckians who are not able to work, due to taking care of children who are not in school or daycare,” he said. “If we were to take that 45,000 people and remove the barriers for them and bring them into the workforce, that could increase our labor participation by more than a full point.”
The task force is to make recommendations to the next session of the General Assembly.
Tom Latek, Kentucky Today
