The North Texas Child Care Workforce Study provides a comprehensive picture of North Texas’s early care and education (ECE) workforce, including workforce size, child care supply, educator characteristics, and experiences and challenges child care directors face. The findings support the development of data-driven strategies to improve families’ access to child care and strengthen the early care and education workforce across the region.
In this report, we detail findings for child care programs across three local Workforce Development Board regions (Workforce Boards): Workforce Solutions Greater Dallas, Workforce Solutions for North Central Texas, and Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County.
Explore what’s needed to enhance a system that shapes the future of young learners.
Over 27,300 early childhood educators work in North Texas child care programs, with more than 10,300 additional educators needed to maximize child enrollment
- An estimated 27,312 early childhood educators currently work in North Texas’s licensed/registered child care centers and homes.
- To fully staff existing child care programs and maximize the number of children served, an additional 10,399 early childhood educators would be required.
- The number of additional educators needed to maximize enrollment to providers’ preferred staffing level is largest in Greater Dallas, which would require a 65 percent increase over its current ECE workforce to maximize enrollment and fully staff existing providers.
- Educator workforce estimates only reflect ideal staffing for existing providers and do not include potential new programs that may be required to meet unmet child care demand.
Approximately one-quarter of educators in center- and home-based programs have at least a bachelor’s degree; center-based educators typically have 4 years of experience compared to 12 years for homebased educators
- In center-based programs, 24 percent of educators hold at least a bachelor’s degree, and most (60%) have 5 years or less experience in the field.
- In home-based programs, 26 percent of educators hold at least a bachelor’s degree, and most (54%) have 11 or more years of experience in the field.
- Most center-based educators (82%) and home-based educators (65%) do not currently hold a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential.
- The early education workforce is racially and ethnically diverse and varies widely across Workforce Boards. Among center-based educators, no single racial or ethnic group holds a plurality in Greater Dallas, unlike North Central Texas and Tarrant County, where White educators represent the largest share. In home-based programs, most educators are Black (55%).
The current ECE system is limited in its current capacity, and many child care slots remain unfilled
- An estimated 117,661 children ages birth to 5 are currently enrolled in licensed or registered child care programs across North Texas.
- Programs currently have the actual capacity to serve 167,513 children today if they fill all available slots. In other words, only 70 percent of available child care seats are filled.
- Programs report that, at maximum, they could collectively serve up to 196,321 children if they were fully staffed (i.e., fully-staffed capacity).
- Total licensed capacity for the region is 301,058, indicating that licensed capacity substantially overstates both the current actual capacity of child care and fully-staffed capacity, or the maximum potential supply of child care among current programs.
- If all current child care programs were enrolled to their fully-staffed capacity and including public pre-K, the current ECE system could serve up to 79 percent of children under age 5 in working-parent households.
- Child care supply estimates reflect child care capacity among existing providers only and do not capture unmet need for additional child care programs
Child care programs struggle financially, at the same time as low wages and few benefits undermine workforce stability
- Most programs across North Texas are operating at a loss (34%) or just breaking even (39%); just 27 percent of directors report their program as currently profitable.
- With current subsidy reimbursement rates similar to or higher than most programs’ tuition, most programs accept child care subsidies (70% of centers and 53% of homes) and would be willing to accept more children using subsidies than they currently do.
- Programs resoundingly report that public pre-K hurts their enrollment (71% of centers and 40% of homes).
- Turnover is high among center-based programs, with 70 percent of programs losing at least one-fifth of their staff annually.
- At the median, educators in North Texas earn $15.00 per hour. Wages remain well below the local living wage for one adult living alone ($23.86); only 4 percent of educators in North Texas make at least a living wage.
- Racial and ethnic wage gaps are present across the region, with differences across Workforce Boards. In Greater Dallas, center-based educators who identify as Black make less than center-based educators who identify as White or Hispanic, but in Tarrant County, Hispanic center-based educators make more than White center-based educators.
- Access to health, dental, and other benefits remains limited, even for full-time educators, with fewer than one in three educators having access to employer-sponsored health insurance.
The North Texas Child Care Workforce Study presents novel data on the actual size and composition of the early education workforce, and the current supply of child care that the current workforce supports. The study also provides metrics of potential supply among current programs and the number of additional educators needed to expand supply. Current programs also report a sizeable portion of currently vacant slots, underscoring a need for further exploration into child care demand and possible barriers to accessing child care.
Child care directors share clear challenges in financial stability, hiring and retaining a high-quality workforce, and the enrollment challenges caused by the expansion of public pre-K. Conversely, directors generally report that participating in the Texas Rising Star (TRS) program and participating in the Child Care Services program (CCS) are overall positive experiences.
Results from this study provide data to close vital gaps in the understanding of North Texas’s child care system and highlight key areas to support child care programs as North Texas comes together to plan, build, and sustain a high-quality early education system.
The full North Texas Study
Other Resources
Briefs from the North Texas Study
Authors
Report Prepared by: Cynthia Osborne, Ph.D.; Monica G. Navarro; Jennifer Huffman, MPAff; and Hilary Doe, Ph.D.
Acknowledgements: Lunaa Hao and Sierra Rowe, MPAff
Recommended Citation: Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center (2025). The North Texas Child Care Workforce Study. https://pn3policy.org.
