Mr. Speaker, while provinces and territories are not required to report on the number of persons employed as child care workers under the Canada-wide early learning and child care, or ELCC, Agreements, Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey on the employment estimates for the Early childhood educators and assistants occupational grouping estimated that the number of persons employed as child care workers in 2022 was 236,100 and 246,700 in 2023. It should be noted this occupation category captures workers who provide care for children between the ages of infancy and 12 years old employed in child care centres, agencies for exceptional children, and other settings where early childhood education services are provided.
As with any survey, the Labour Force Survey is subject to biases and errors and is best for monitoring longer term trends, rather than for comparing two single points in time. Further, please note that not all Labour Force Survey data is available for all provinces and territories. Due to sampling constraints, some data is not available for the North, including data regarding the number of early childhood educators and assistants. As such, the figures referenced above do not include the estimated number of early childhood educators working in the Territories.
As the provinces and territories are the owners of the administrative data related to the delivery of their ELCC programs and services, they may have the detailed information being sought. The Government of Canada will continue to work together with the provinces and territories through the implementation of the Canada-wide ELCC system to improve the collection and dissemination of data.