Lockdown loosening: Now the daycare ignorance is taking revenge

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There is also something good that can be wrested from the situation: when the little ones arrive at the Eulengasse children's center in the Bornheim district of Frankfurt in the morning, they are now well rested.

Because before nine o'clock the doors are still closed.

That was different until a few months ago, when the parents were able to hand their children over to the daycare center at 7.30 a.m. and then make their way to their workplace in the city center.

It seems like an eternity ago.

Now the children's center opens later and closes earlier.

The little ones have to be picked up by 4 p.m. at the latest.

It is not enough to get a full working day within the care hours.

And a change is not in sight.

"As long as the risk of infection is so high and we are not allowed to mix the groups, we cannot open the door regularly," says Irene Sikora-Joves, head of the Eulengasse children's center.

There is simply a lack of staff.

A shortage of staff is part of everyday life in German daycare centers.

The pandemic has made this even worse: employees cannot be deployed because they suffer from previous illnesses, have to look after their own children at home or have to be quarantined.

In addition, vacancies cannot be filled.

A survey by WELT AM SONNTAG shows that municipal daycare centers in major German cities lack around ten percent of their employees.

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In Munich and Düsseldorf the rate is slightly higher, in Frankfurt 15 percent are missing, in Dortmund and Stuttgart it is currently around 20 percent.

The independent institutions also complain about high bottlenecks.

The Association of Catholic Daycare Centers for Children (KTK), for example, to which 8,000 daycare centers belong, estimates that nine percent of the skilled workers cannot currently be deployed due to the corona.

The daycare centers need significantly more workers right now in order to comply with the strict hygiene regulations and at the same time to fulfill the political wish to be able to look after more children in the facilities.

In many federal states, all children are to be looked after again.

The daycare centers in Lower Saxony, for example, can go back to normal operation from March 8th, the Ministry of Education said on Thursday, but open groups or a mixture of groups are still not allowed.

Nationwide, despite easing, numerous daycare centers have to work with reduced offers - or shut down completely if there is an outbreak.

The care insecurity is higher than ever.

This can drag on for many months - with great stress for children, parents and educators.

Drastic consequences for women's incomes

This could leave a lasting mark on women, in particular.

Economists fear that mothers will reduce their working hours.

Larissa Zierow from the Munich Ifo Institute and the Würzburg scientist Christina Felfe showed by evaluating data from the socio-economic panel in the years 2010 to 2013 that the work of mothers is strongly related to the time spent caring for children.

If they go to daycare all day, the mothers work longer and also earn more.

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Because this is not the case with many, the opposite effect threatens.

Elke Hannack, deputy chairwoman of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), sees single mothers particularly badly affected by the limited childcare facilities.

The consequences for women's earnings could be drastic.

"The income gap between the sexes will probably widen even further as a result of the Corona crisis," she fears.

But even though childcare is an essential economic factor, there are major hiccups.

The expansion of day-care centers has been driven forward since the beginning of the millennium.

However, the supply of skilled workers can only keep up with the strong growth in demand with difficulty.

Educators are not only mediocre paid, their training sometimes takes up to five years and is usually unpaid.

Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, the shortage of skilled workers was so great that the Association for Education and Upbringing warned that every fourth daycare center had to get by with too few staff in over 40 percent of the care time.

The employees are overworked and therefore sick more often.

The daycare centers are in a vicious circle

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In times of the pandemic, many stay away permanently.

And in contrast to before the Corona crisis, the remaining employees can hardly support each other.

"If an educator has to take a break after six hours according to the regulations, she cannot be temporarily replaced by an educator from another group," says Sikora-Joves from the Eulengasse daycare center in Frankfurt.

How much this can restrict daycare operations only became apparent last Monday when suddenly three out of seven kindergarten teachers called in sick.

The children's centers are in a dilemma.

If you keep the groups strictly separated, you will hardly be able to increase the care time again.

Up until now, most facilities have combined groups in the early and late shifts in particular.

Since this is no longer allowed, restrictions can occur again and again in almost all facilities.

For many, it would not even be possible to extend the childcare hours with separate groups.

It is a vicious circle: If the daycare centers allow an exchange between the groups again, the risk of infection increases and follow-up becomes more difficult.

In addition, more employees and children have to be quarantined in an outbreak than would be the case in separate groups.

The daycare centers absolutely want to avoid that.

Accepting a higher risk of infection should "not even begin to be up for debate," says Jens Schubert, head of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (Awo), who runs more than 2500 day-care centers across Germany.

People in Munich are more flexible: In order to maintain the regular opening times, staff here can "also work across groups on the basis of the existing hygiene regulations".

At the same time, the daycare centers try to increase resources in order to avoid further restrictions.

"We negotiate with the municipalities in order to be able to switch to public spaces, for example libraries," says KTK managing director Frank Jansen, who represents around 8,000 daycare centers.

In order to be able to use this with the smaller groups, he urges to be allowed to hire temporary workers unbureaucratically to finance the municipalities.

These could be education students, day care workers, or babysitters.

Higher demands on the quality of care in the west

The profession must be open to career changers.

"The federal states have to revise the requirements for employees downwards," says Jansen.

It must be possible to employ people with non-pedagogical qualifications in addition to educators.

"Otherwise we won't be able to get the problem under control."

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In fact, due to the difficult situation, the daycare centers could be forced to make further compromises.

This is what Wido Geis-Thöne from the Cologne Institute of the German Economy (IW) also says.

In this way, larger groups could allow a significantly longer period of care.

This has long been the norm in East German crèches and kindergartens and has correspondingly positive effects on the employment of women there, who work full-time much more often.

“In the new federal states, one educator is often responsible for six crèche children or twelve kindergarten children,” says Geis-Thöne.

This has a relief in the pandemic.

Although there is currently a lack of ten percent of the staff in Leipzig's day-care centers, there are only "some changes" in the care times.

It is questionable whether this model can be transferred to the West.

"The demands on the quality of care are significantly higher there," says the economist.

Fear of poor quality discourages many parents from having their children cared for for eight hours or more.

These reservations could be heightened by the pandemic.

Temporary employment agencies, which some daycare centers in Berlin and Frankfurt rely on, are another way out of temporarily bridging the shortage of staff.

In Stuttgart, too, temporary workers are employed in childcare so that “space can be guaranteed for all registered children,” says a city spokesman.

The Dortmunders also get support from so-called everyday heroes.

Mobile vaccination teams for educators?

Others, on the other hand, warn of the negative effects on children due to excessive fluctuation among employees.

"We cannot start recruiting new employees in the middle of the pandemic, this is a problem that has to be solved in the long term," says Ifo economist Zierow.

According to Awo boss Schubert, it is now a matter of vaccinating to prevent further failures.

For a few days now, day-care center employees have had high priority when it comes to vaccination and are on a par with 70 to 80-year-olds.

The states and municipalities now have to act quickly, he says.

“The organizational effort must remain as low as possible in order to relieve the employees.” He advocates mobile vaccination teams.

But it will probably take many weeks before these come, with severe bottlenecks occurring again and again.

Kita manager Sikora-Joves from Frankfurt is nevertheless confident that she will be back to work with the full staff, at least on Monday.