The Dutch government has made 6 million euros available to ease the pressure on childcare centres in the Netherlands caused by staff shortages. The funds will go towards a subsidy that childcare organisations can use to hire additional group assistants.
Due to the worker shortage in the childcare sector, the government has delayed plans to make childcare almost free for working parents, pushing up the target date from 2025 to 2027. According to AD, childcare centres are already experiencing a shortage of 6.000 workers.
As a part of the plan to first relieve the pressure on childcare centres before increasing the demand with free childcare, daycare centres can now apply for a subsidy from November 4, 2024, to hire unqualified workers to help with taking care of children. “If childcare becomes almost free, more people will use it and even more employees will be needed at daycare centres,” State Secretary of Participation and Integration Jurgen Nobel told AD. “The new subsidy scheme is intended to attract them.”
Childcare organisations will be able to apply for a maximum subsidy of just over 10.000 euros per assistant (for two assistants at most per year) and must provide an employment contract of at least one year. During this time, the group assistant also has to follow part-time secondary vocational training.
With childcare organisations able to hire untrained workers to assist pedagogical professionals, a broad group of people searching for jobs in childcare who do not have the correct diplomas will be able to find work. According to Nobel, these unqualified workers won’t replace qualified staff as there must always be a trained professional in the group looking after the children.
Also, because the newly-hired group assistants have to undergo training there is potential for them to develop into trained professionals themselves, further relieving the pressure caused by the staff shortage.
The government is still looking into a way to implement this new system properly, with the intention of eventually removing the childcare allowance given to parents, which is set to increase in 2025, and redirecting the funds to childcare and daycare centres.
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