Childcare Workers
39-9011.00
Bright Outlook Updated 2022

Attend to children at schools, businesses, private households, and childcare institutions. Perform a variety of tasks, such as dressing, feeding, bathing, and overseeing play.

Sample of reported job titles: Caregiver, Child Care Worker, Child Caregiver, Childcare Provider, Childcare Worker, Daycare Teacher, Daycare Worker, Infant Teacher, Toddler Teacher

Also see: Nannies

Occupation-Specific Information

Tasks

  • Maintain a safe play environment.
  • Observe and monitor children's play activities.
  • Communicate with children's parents or guardians about daily activities, behaviors, and related issues.
  • Support children's emotional and social development, encouraging understanding of others and positive self-concepts.
  • Care for children in institutional setting, such as group homes, nursery schools, private businesses, or schools for the handicapped.
  • Sanitize toys and play equipment.
  • Dress children and change diapers.
  • Keep records on individual children, including daily observations and information about activities, meals served, and medications administered.
  • Identify signs of emotional or developmental problems in children and bring them to parents' or guardians' attention.
  • Instruct children in health and personal habits, such as eating, resting, and toilet habits.
  • Organize and store toys and materials to ensure order in activity areas.
  • Perform general administrative tasks, such as taking attendance, editing internal paperwork, and making phone calls.
  • Create developmentally appropriate lesson plans.
  • Perform housekeeping duties, such as laundry, cleaning, dish washing, and changing of linens.
  • Read to children and teach them simple painting, drawing, handicrafts, and songs.
  • Assist in preparing food and serving meals and refreshments to children.
  • Discipline children and recommend or initiate other measures to control behavior, such as caring for own clothing and picking up toys and books.
  • Regulate children's rest periods.
  • Organize and participate in recreational activities and outings, such as games and field trips.
  • Sterilize bottles and prepare formulas.
  • Help children with homework and school work.
  • Provide care for mentally disturbed, delinquent, or handicapped children.
  • Operate in-house day-care centers within businesses.
  • Perform general personnel functions, such as supervision, training, and scheduling.
  • Accompany children to and from school, on outings, and to medical appointments.
Find occupations related to multiple tasks

Technology Skills

Hot technology Hot Technologies are requirements frequently included in employer job postings.

Occupational Requirements

Work Activities

  • Assisting and Caring for Others — Providing personal assistance, medical attention, emotional support, or other personal care to others such as coworkers, customers, or patients.
  • Making Decisions and Solving Problems — Analyzing information and evaluating results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
  • Thinking Creatively — Developing, designing, or creating new applications, ideas, relationships, systems, or products, including artistic contributions.
  • Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates — Providing information to supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates by telephone, in written form, e-mail, or in person.
  • Getting Information — Observing, receiving, and otherwise obtaining information from all relevant sources.
  • Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work — Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
  • Resolving Conflicts and Negotiating with Others — Handling complaints, settling disputes, and resolving grievances and conflicts, or otherwise negotiating with others.
  • Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships — Developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others, and maintaining them over time.
  • Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events — Identifying information by categorizing, estimating, recognizing differences or similarities, and detecting changes in circumstances or events.
  • Performing General Physical Activities — Performing physical activities that require considerable use of your arms and legs and moving your whole body, such as climbing, lifting, balancing, walking, stooping, and handling materials.
  • Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others — Getting members of a group to work together to accomplish tasks.
  • Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards — Using relevant information and individual judgment to determine whether events or processes comply with laws, regulations, or standards.
  • Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings — Monitoring and reviewing information from materials, events, or the environment, to detect or assess problems.
  • Developing and Building Teams — Encouraging and building mutual trust, respect, and cooperation among team members.
  • Developing Objectives and Strategies — Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
  • Documenting/Recording Information — Entering, transcribing, recording, storing, or maintaining information in written or electronic/magnetic form.
  • Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Materials — Inspecting equipment, structures, or materials to identify the cause of errors or other problems or defects.
  • Performing for or Working Directly with the Public — Performing for people or dealing directly with the public. This includes serving customers in restaurants and stores, and receiving clients or guests.
  • Training and Teaching Others — Identifying the educational needs of others, developing formal educational or training programs or classes, and teaching or instructing others.
  • Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge — Keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to your job.
  • Scheduling Work and Activities — Scheduling events, programs, and activities, as well as the work of others.

Detailed Work Activities

Find occupations related to multiple detailed work activities

Work Context

  • Contact With Others — 83% responded “Constant contact with others.”
  • Face-to-Face Discussions — 81% responded “Every day.”
  • Work With Work Group or Team — 65% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Physical Proximity — 51% responded “Very close (near touching).”
  • Indoors, Environmentally Controlled — 77% responded “Every day.”
  • Structured versus Unstructured Work — 42% responded “Some freedom.”
  • Freedom to Make Decisions — 54% responded “Some freedom.”
  • Responsible for Others' Health and Safety — 42% responded “Very high responsibility.”
  • Spend Time Standing — 48% responded “About half the time.”
  • Coordinate or Lead Others — 34% responded “Important.”
  • Responsibility for Outcomes and Results — 31% responded “Very high responsibility.”
  • Time Pressure — 30% responded “Once a month or more but not every week.”
  • Frequency of Conflict Situations — 31% responded “Every day.”
  • Deal With External Customers — 34% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Importance of Being Exact or Accurate — 35% responded “Very important.”
  • Telephone — 41% responded “Once a week or more but not every day.”
  • Frequency of Decision Making — 47% responded “Every day.”
  • Impact of Decisions on Co-workers or Company Results — 34% responded “Important results.”
  • Letters and Memos — 29% responded “Once a week or more but not every day.”
  • Spend Time Bending or Twisting the Body — 38% responded “About half the time.”
  • Spend Time Kneeling, Crouching, Stooping, or Crawling — 33% responded “About half the time.”

Experience Requirements

Job Zone

Title
Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed
Education
These occupations usually require a high school diploma.
Related Experience
Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.
Job Training
Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Job Zone Examples
These occupations often involve using your knowledge and skills to help others. Examples include orderlies, counter and rental clerks, customer service representatives, security guards, upholsterers, and tellers.
SVP Range
3 months to 1 year of preparation (4.0 to < 6.0)

Training & Credentials

State training
Local training
Certifications
Find certifications nationwide
State licenses
Apprenticeships
Have a career path or location in mind? Visit Apprenticeship.gov external site to find apprenticeship opportunities near you.

Worker Requirements

Skills

  • Monitoring — Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
  • Service Orientation — Actively looking for ways to help people.
  • Social Perceptiveness — Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
  • Active Listening — Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
  • Coordination — Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
  • Critical Thinking — Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
  • Speaking — Talking to others to convey information effectively.
  • Active Learning — Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
  • Complex Problem Solving — Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
  • Instructing — Teaching others how to do something.
  • Judgment and Decision Making — Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
  • Learning Strategies — Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
  • Reading Comprehension — Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
  • Writing — Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

Knowledge

  • Customer and Personal Service — Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
  • English Language — Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
  • Education and Training — Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
  • Public Safety and Security — Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
  • Psychology — Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.

Education

How much education does a new hire need to perform a job in this occupation? Respondents said:

  • 39%
     
    High school diploma or equivalent required
  • 23%
     
    Associate’s degree required
  • 14%
     
    Less than high school diploma required

Worker Characteristics

Abilities

  • Oral Comprehension — The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Oral Expression — The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Problem Sensitivity — The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Deductive Reasoning — The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Far Vision — The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Speech Recognition — The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Written Comprehension — The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Category Flexibility — The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Fluency of Ideas — The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Inductive Reasoning — The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Information Ordering — The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Near Vision — The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Selective Attention — The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Speech Clarity — The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Time Sharing — The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Written Expression — The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.

Interests

Interest code: SA
Want to discover your interests? Take the O*NET Interest Profiler at My Next Move.
  • Social — Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
  • Artistic — Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Work Values

  • Relationships — Occupations that satisfy this work value allow employees to provide service to others and work with co-workers in a friendly non-competitive environment. Corresponding needs are Co-workers, Moral Values and Social Service.
  • Support — Occupations that satisfy this work value offer supportive management that stands behind employees. Corresponding needs are Company Policies, Supervision: Human Relations and Supervision: Technical.
  • Independence — Occupations that satisfy this work value allow employees to work on their own and make decisions. Corresponding needs are Creativity, Responsibility and Autonomy.

Work Styles

  • Self-Control — Job requires maintaining composure, keeping emotions in check, controlling anger, and avoiding aggressive behavior, even in very difficult situations.
  • Concern for Others — Job requires being sensitive to others' needs and feelings and being understanding and helpful on the job.
  • Integrity — Job requires being honest and ethical.
  • Stress Tolerance — Job requires accepting criticism and dealing calmly and effectively with high-stress situations.
  • Cooperation — Job requires being pleasant with others on the job and displaying a good-natured, cooperative attitude.
  • Attention to Detail — Job requires being careful about detail and thorough in completing work tasks.
  • Dependability — Job requires being reliable, responsible, and dependable, and fulfilling obligations.
  • Social Orientation — Job requires preferring to work with others rather than alone, and being personally connected with others on the job.
  • Adaptability/Flexibility — Job requires being open to change (positive or negative) and to considerable variety in the workplace.
  • Independence — Job requires developing one's own ways of doing things, guiding oneself with little or no supervision, and depending on oneself to get things done.
  • Initiative — Job requires a willingness to take on responsibilities and challenges.
  • Leadership — Job requires a willingness to lead, take charge, and offer opinions and direction.
  • Innovation — Job requires creativity and alternative thinking to develop new ideas for and answers to work-related problems.
  • Persistence — Job requires persistence in the face of obstacles.
  • Analytical Thinking — Job requires analyzing information and using logic to address work-related issues and problems.
  • Achievement/Effort — Job requires establishing and maintaining personally challenging achievement goals and exerting effort toward mastering tasks.

Workforce Characteristics

Wages & Employment Trends

Median wages (2021)
$13.22 hourly, $27,490 annual
State wages
Local wages
Employment (2020)
992,400 employees
Projected growth (2020-2030)
Average (5% to 10%)
Projected job openings (2020-2030)
150,300
State trends
Top industries (2020)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2021 wage data external site and 2020-2030 employment projections external site. “Projected growth” represents the estimated change in total employment over the projections period (2020-2030). “Projected job openings” represent openings due to growth and replacement.

Job Openings on the Web

State job openings
Local job openings

More Information

Sources of Additional Information

Disclaimer: Sources are listed to provide additional information on related jobs, specialties, and/or industries. Links to non-DOL Internet sites are provided for your convenience and do not constitute an endorsement.