Orange County isn’t an exception. There are only enough childcare providers in OC for about 5% of children in the county, according to a study by First 5 Orange County, a public agency that invests in child development.
The County recently awarded First 5 $75,000 to help launch a childcare incubator. The program aims to help train and add to the number of childcare providers available in OC.
The average salary for a childcare provider in California is $37,430, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That could be a contributing factor to the number of licensed childcare providers in the state dropping by 1,100 since 2019, according to Education Source.
“People just see the taking care of the children portion of the business, but there’s also a lot of behind the scenes that we have to do,” said Omar Mauricio, who co-owns New Hope Ositos Child Day Care in Santa Ana. “We have to stay compliant with licensing. We have to stay compliant with the quality of the food that we give to our children. And on top of that, there’s also the business aspect of things that we have to be compliant with the state.”
Mauricio runs the daycare center with his wife, Lucy Manzanares, who says the first year in the business was exceptionally difficult.
“It was a little bit hard,” Manzanares said. “Thanks to my husband, we stayed open like a year without getting payments, without getting a lot of the resources that we have now.”
First 5 Orange County is working to help entrepreneurs in the childcare space to help ease some of the burden and get more people working in the industry to help parents find adequate and affordable care.