Childcare is not a dumping ground for the unemployable

I just find it so saddening that we place such little value on these roles. The majority of the staff at the nursery I sent my DC to were amazing and I truly valued them and the care they provided.

But there was an obvious mismatch between them, several of whom had second jobs at supermarkets etc and the owner who was turning up in a Ferrari. Meanwhile I was paying 2/3 of my salary.

I don’t know what the answer is but I don’t think the problem is the lack of money, a bit like the NHS theres structural issues there that go beyond just throwing more money at at. Unless we value the service though there’s no impetus for change. Problem is when we are at the receiving end we are vulnerable and not in a position to advocate for change.

Yes - I thought the same so I am not surprised it has spilled over to childcare. I would imagine with childcare there are less places to hide as the ratios higher and for example, there’s no lone working unlike care.

I love this way of putting it. Having enough value to an employer to consistently cover NMW plus any NI, pensions, supervision etc is not the sole way of having value to wider society.

BTW, as a disabled person myself, I've absolutely had to solve the challenge of finding meaningful activity that gives some sort structure to my life and value to my existence.

I do try to do things which have a value to other people and wider society.

None of this involves paid employment.

I just can't do nearly enough, or be anywhere near reliable enough, to fulfill a contractual obligation for anything. On bad days I can't even write an MN post.

I think there is a lot of expectation of what a min wage worker is expected to do, their responsibilities and how they should do their job.
My friend worked in a nursery, she has a level 3 qualification. She was paid pennies above min wage and expected to do observations, write reports etc. If she had moved to retail, she would have had better pay and less stress. Having said that all staff that were employed by the nursery had to either be qualified or had to be doing an apprenticeship so I can’t imagine that any would be illiterate. Many doing apprenticeships left as the money is even less for a full on job.

I have another friend who works in a medical centre (non clinical) and the amount they are expected to know and what they are expected to do for min wage is crazy imo. Patients will huff and puff and sometimes be abusive to them but I sometimes wonder if they realise that they are all on min wage, work 10 hour shifts with 1/2 hour break and would get paid more if they worked in McDonald’s!
Where I live, I often see min wage jobs asking for a range of qualifications and sometimes even additional languages and unfortunately there are far more applicants than jobs.

I agree with this, but if someone is just cleaning toys for eg and not having to do paperwork or deal with difficult parents etc, should they be on the same wage as someone who does? The trouble is most staff who work in childcare are on minimum wage anyway.

You think people are putting their children into childcare because they don’t value SAHP? You don’t think many working parents would rather be at home with their children rather than having to go out and earn enough money to just about scrape by? How fortunate you are to be able to do this. Don’t be a dick about it.

PIP has a fraud rate of... 0%

This is quite patently untrue. It simply shows that no effort went into detecting fraud. Any time money is available there will be those who will seek to obtain it fraudulently. It is beyond naive to think otherwise.

Perfectly put.

Yep. Some people refuse to understand that their belief that a person should be working doesn't automatically create a job where that person can be productive enough to cover the cost of their wage to the organisation.

In the OPs case a review of task allocation would also be helpful. The person who can't lift can probably read. The person who can't read can probably clean and tidy toys. If employers want a diverse workforce they need to recognise that a one size fits all role isn't going to work and start seeing their staff as individuals, using each to their abilities. However, this takes significant work on an ongoing basis and many employers lack the skills or motivation to do it properly.

Sorry don’t know how to edit , boys with poor gcses!

It’s a feminist issue too. That girls (and it is mostly girls) who attain poor gcses are directed to childcare, cookery or beauty as career paths on leaving school.
Yet men who attain good gcses are encouraged to take up trades which will have excellent earning potential (plumbing , construction and so on).

"It could be argued that if it isn’t being claimed then it maybe it isn’t needed."

In many cases it isn't being claimed because of what people have to go through to get it and keep it. It's often better to have a level of poverty but not have every level of pride knocked out of you.

For others it's simply too complicated or damaging, or they have withdrawn from it because they are scared of the repercussions of being made to do things they are unsuited to.

I know two autistic young women with BPD funneled into child care, via agencies offering training that they were mandatorily referred to by the job center. Both are worryingly unsuited to the work, but also scared about it.

One is simply unable to understand needs or see the children as more than bottoms and noses to be wiped and to be told off when breaking rules.
She finds the first two tasks disgusting and tells the children thoroughly.
She has relayed the idea that making sure they follow the rules is what she sees as central to her role, and has been accused of repeatedly picking on specific children and making their daycare miserable.

The other has been flagged up to her agency as having far too high a record of dramatic incidents related to children by several placements who don't want her back.
She is being diverted to disabled and elderly care as a high ratio of dramas involving them is considered to be more normal so will raise less concerns.

In a nutshell.

And 'twas ever thus.

I've been on MN more than 15 years, during Osborne's austerity and more, and it never changes.

Not every unemployed person wants or needs to be unemployed. After taking years out of the work place for the kids thank god the jobcentre helped me find a job I think they have a deal with certain workplaces.
Otherwise most employers look at a "CV gap" and just disregard you straight away.

Maybe some of the people in ops workplace shouldn't be there but I'd bet a lot of them would just learn on the job given time

I totally agree (and a huge part of why I've never sent my children to childcare.

However, I do see it from the other point of view.

Universal Credit and the powers that control that are hell bent on getting everyone into work, whether they can or not. People are sanctioned if they don't look for work, so many will apply for jobs that they're absolutely not suitable for. Most employers will take one look at their application, or get them into interview and then realise they're completely unsuitable for that job, whatever the reason.

Nursery staff are so underpaid for the important job they do, so don't attract the people that they need. This means they're short staffed, and lose money when they can't take children on, or have to close. So the bosses will take on any person they can to be a body in the room, keep their ratios and let them stay open. This means they end up with people who don't trally want to be there or shouldn't be there because they're not suitable for the job.

This is so true. I’m an MSc qualified professional with a 20 year background in a high profile public role. I’m also autistic. My first job on leaving college was customer service at M&S. There is simply no way I could work in a supermarket now. The technicalities and technology would completely bamboozle me. If I didn’t have my qualifications, I’d find it almost impossible to access the majority of ‘entry level’ roles these days.

Same in schools. Almost half of our staff is supply - permanently. Some are really unsuitable and we've had some really nexperienced/unsuitable supply turn up who then get paid more than qualified and experienced staff. One lady couldn't speak any English whatsoever - and this is a SEN School.

If people place so little value on it, it's not surprising that it's translating to paid childcare work 🤷🏼‍♀️ I know not everyone has that attitude but it is quite prominent on here.

No 50% of staff can be unqualified. We've had unqualified staff who work harder and better then ones who are qualified.

I think though some people do come into the role thinking be a easy job just play all day and then reality it is a lot harder and you have to constantly push them or remind them to do things. Some do tend to click into place however and others eventually leave.

Please don't turn this into another thread where we start criticising SAHM Vs Working Mum's.
I've done both. Both can be difficult. As parents we just have to do what is right for our particular families.

Realistically there are lots of people who are / are not disabled but don’t have the correct attitude and motivation for work. We have all had lazy colleagues but there are some people that are a lot worse than that. There are many people who have been out of work for years for lots of different reasons.

Sorry that this has happened to you OP, it’s awful getting the same pay as someone who is not pulling their weight.

You might want to pop over to one of the many benefit bashing threads and share your story there OP. It would be helpful for people insisting everyone needs to work to see the real life impact when people are in jobs that their abilities, health conditions, age and aptitude make impossible for them. Because we should expect to see a lot more of this when the government inevitably starts to pay employers to take on the long term unemployed. People will be pushed into low paid roles they can't do and the government subsidy, plus the extra pool of 'bums on seats' to fill the roles will keep wages low. I'm not suggesting for a moment that people with disabilities and health conditions should be excluded from the work place, sometimes all that's needed are the right adjustments. But realistically, as your experience demonstrates, employers don't make them properly to enable their staff, they often either leave them to struggle or off load their work onto other people.

@Livelovebehappy Illiterate people can not do factory work because there isn’t any factories that could employ them . those jobs are long gone along with manufacturing
it’s all been closed/ made abroad