The Albanese Government has tonight passed legislation through the Parliament to deliver a 15 per cent wage increase for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) workers.
The wage increase is tied to a commitment from early childhood education and care services to limit fee increases. We want to make sure workers can be fairly paid without the costs being passed on to families.
Phased in over two years, this wage increase will include a 10 per cent increase from December 2024, and a further 5 per cent increase from December 2025.
Since coming to Government, the early learning workforce has grown by more than 30,000 workers, but we need more.
This $3.6 billion investment will help retain our existing early childhood educators, who are predominately women, and help attract new employees.
The wage increase also applies to workers in outside school hours care services - creating benefits for the parents of school aged children too.
By improving access to quality early childhood education and care we can also boost productivity and workforce participation in the short and long-term.
Combined with the Government's successful Cheaper Child Care changes, this wage increase will help support the availability of early education and care for families and is an important step in charting the course to a truly universal early education system.
This means a typical ECEC educator who is paid at the award rate will receive a pay rise of at least $103 per week, increasing to at least $155 per week from December 2025.
For a typical early childhood teacher, they'll receive an additional $166 a week from December this year, increasing to $249 from December of next year.
To be eligible to receive funding for the wage rise funding, services won't be able to increase their fees by more than 4.4 per cent over the 12 months from 8 August 2024, and 4.2 per cent over the following 12 months.
Early learning providers can now apply for funding to deliver the pay rise at: education.gov.au/early-childhood/workforce/wages.
This is a win for workers, a win for families and will help ease cost of living pressures.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Education, Jason Clare:
"The child care debate is over. It's not babysitting. It's early education and it's critical to preparing children for school.
"They lift our kids up and now we are lifting their pay before Christmas.
"This means wages up for workers and keeping prices down for families.
"A pay rise for every early childhood educator is good for our workforce, good for families and good our economy."
Quotes attributable to Minister for Early Childhood Education, Dr Anne Aly:
"This is a wonderful outcome for a highly feminised workforce that has for far too long been neglected and taken for granted.
"We're boosting the wages of early childhood education workers, while relieving cost of living pressures on Australian families.
"Properly valuing the early childhood education and care workforce is crucial to attracting and retaining workers and vital to achieving the quality universal early learning sector Australian families deserve.
"A quality early childhood education sector is necessary to support children's learning and development as well as workforce participation in the broader economy."
