The Grays Harbor economy is rebounding, but despite efforts by local employers, staffing gaps linger and obstacles remain for those looking to rejoin the workforce.

According to data released by the Washington State Employment Security Department last month, the unemployment rate in Grays Harbor fell to 7.6 percent in February from 10.1 percent in February 2021. Over the same time, the county’s workforce increased by more than 1,000.

Despite its bounce back, Grays Harbor has the eighth highest unemployment rate in the state, and falls short of the state average unemployment rate of 4.3 percent and the national average of 3.8 percent in February.

With COVID-19 restrictions largely lifted nationally, it seems more than the pandemic has been holding the Harbor economy back.

“Child care has such an impact to the economy,” said CEO of Greater Grays Harbor (GGH) Lynnette Buffington. Buffington was recently appointed to the Child Care Collaborative Task Force by Governor Jay Inslee. “The workforce can’t return at its highest capacity because caregivers have to stay at home.”

According to a report by Washington STEM, Washington employers incurred costs of $2.08 billion in 2019 due to employee absenteeism becasue of inadequate child care coverage. In the Pacifc Mountain region, which includes Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific and Thurston counties, a lack of child care collectively costs employers $129.7 million annually.

“Grays Harbor, like most of the timber economies throughout the state, has been hurt by all the logging restrictions. People mostly aren’t making the same level of income as before, so there’s not as many families with the funds to pay for child care,” said Gary Burris, Executive Director of the Child Care Action Council in Olympia. “Even where the wages are higher, often times people still aren’t making enough money to pay for child care.”

Gaps in child care don’t happen in a bubble. When working parents are unable to find child care options that meet their needs, the entire local economy suffers.

A 2021 survey released by the Grays Harbor, Mason, Thurston Child Care Task Force found that 58 percent of employers across all three counties said the “shortage of child care options” has impacted their business in some way.

“When we hire, that’s one of the first conversations we have, because a lot of people will want shifts that can work around school,” said Jon Martin, Ocean Shores Mayor and Director of Operations at the Ocean Shores McDonald’s franchise. “It impacts everybody, it impacts my employees and city employees. You just can’t grow an economy without a strong education and day care system.”

According to Buffington, all local employers are “desperately” looking for talent, but recruitment is just one piece of the puzzle. In order to meet pre-pandemic staffing needs, employee retention is a priority. This often means offering shift flexibility and internal support for employees with children.

Shift workers are one of the hardest-hit demographics when it comes to the child care crisis. Their incomes provide less financial wiggle room for costly child care and they are more likely to have unique child care needs.

Few shift employees know that pressure more than the custody staff at the Stafford Creek Correction Center in Aberdeen. Custody staff is subject to mandatory overtime, which often gives them little to no time to coordinate child care before they begin their shift.

“Child care is critical in our recruitment and retention efforts as custody positions don’t have the flexibility that other positions offer. We do lose staff to non-custody positions or to other agencies for that reason,” said Washington DOC Media Relations Manager Tobby Hatley.

According to Hatley, parents who work together at the facility often work opposite shifts in order to avoid child care expenses and provide 24-hour care for their children. If one of the parents is selected for mandatory overtime, however, the delicate balance quickly unravels.

At Ocean Gold Seafoods Inc. in Westport, day shifts typically run from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Night shifts begin at 7 p.m. and end at 6 a.m.

“It is really hard for employees to find day care for their children, especially when over 50 percent of the day cares here closed down during COVID” said Brandalee Smith, HR Manager. “A lot of them are working families, or single parents — we’ve had to evolve.”

Due to the seasonal nature of seafood processing, Ocean Gold employs up to 600 people during the high season. May to October is key time for their work and when their payroll is at its largest, but it’s also the time when child care needs are the greatest in the absence of daily schooling.

“Any of those absences that our employees have due to day care we’ve excused, and we’ve tried to work with them the best we can. Then they’re allowed to come in later; we have to be more flexible for our employees because of the shortage in workforce especially,” she said.

Some employees at the company have remained at home due to a lack of affordable child care in the Westport area, and will only return when they can find adequate care. Others have collaborated to create options outside of traditional child care providers.

“They’ve kind of networked, and I know that some of them have had their teenage daughters on summer break watching the kids. They come up with really great solutions, but we have had some that have had to leave because they just can’t find day care,” said Smith.

She believes the South Beach area would need “quite a few” additional child care providers in order to meet the needs of local families.

Smith is right, but it’s not just the South Beach area that’s afflicted by a scarcity of providers.

According to Burris, Grays Harbor County lost 30 child care providers between 2012 and 2022. In the time from August 2020 to August 2021, the county lost 23 percent of its providers.

But if availability of child care is the first concern, than affordability is a close second.

According to a Child Care Task Force survey, almost 60 percent of Grays Harbor families indicate that the cost of child care is more than they can comfortably afford.

At Vaughan Co. Inc., a manufacturing company located in Montesano, shifts begin at 7 a.m. This often poses a conflict for working parents who have to request more flexible start times due to day care hours of operation.

“We have a handful of employees, because of the price, even with before and after work day care only, who bring their children to work with them in the morning so that they can catch the bus to school from here,” said Vaughan Company CFO Stacie Tobey.

Tobey is grateful that they are able to accommodate the schedules of working parents, but recognizes it is not a catch-all solution for child care woes.

“One of our employees, his wife told me it takes about one-quarter of their income for one child, so it has impacted their family planning,” she said. “Another employee has a preschool-aged child in Aberdeen and he comes to work with her in the mornings, and either she takes an extended lunch or one of her co-workers on a different shift drops him off.”

Vaughan Company offers a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) to its employees. The FSA allows employees to set aside pre-tax money that can be reclaimed upon submitting claims for eligible health and day care exprenses.

The average family in the Pacific Mountain region pays 17 percent of their income to have just one child in child care, according to Washington STEM.

While the lack of affordable local child care hurts the process of eligible employees entering the workforce, it also stifles the economy through a lack of upward mobility. As child care remains a top priority for working parents, some are turning down opportunities for professional advancement so as to not disturb their child care solutions.

“Employers have told me they’ve offered promotions, but their employees are turning them down because a promotion could disrupt the delicate balance of child care that house has figured out,” said Buffington. “They’re turning down a promotion because they’re concerned that the higher pay will make them ineligible for child care subsidies.”

Working Connections Child Care is a state subsidy program that helps eligible families pay for child care. The family’s income must be at or below 60 percent of the State Median Income, or 65 percent when reapplying.

Child care providers who accept subsidies typically incur financial loss, as the subsidy rate is significantly below the actual cost to provide care. According to Washington STEM, the Cost of Quality — or the average annual cost of programs that have been awared the highest level of quality — is $24,000. Yet, 75 percent of providers charge less than or equal to $8,731.

Subsidies may undermine the bottom line of some child care providers, but many acknowledge the crucial role they play in allowing families to find child care that suits their needs.

“I’ve watched parents get a 10 cent raise at work, and they get kicked off the subsidy. That extra $20 a month doesn’t make up for the thousands of dollars the state was going to pay for child care,” said Tracy Dawson, who runs Tracy’s Tikes Day Care & Preschool in Montesano and Tracy’s Tikes Early Learning Center in Aberdeen.

While Dawson has kept her rates at a sustainable level to run her business, she must also balance the financial constraints of parents who are on the edge when it comes to affording child care.

“I think the state has maybe gone from seeing child care accessibility as a desperate need to seeing it as a crisis,” said Burris. “By putting money into the hands of child care consumers through better subsidies, that puts money in the hands of providers, which makes the business more sustainable.”

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have put forth bills to address accessibility, affordability, and worker’s pay in the child care industry. Both bills would broaden eligibility to receive assistance and help millions of families nationwide access child care subsidies. In both plans, the lowest earners wouldn’t have to pay for child care at all.

The Democrat’s plan, put forward by Washington Sen. Patty Murrary, also calls for the government to spend $382 billion over a six-year period on care and education for children ages 0-5. It is part of the Build Back Better spending billed currently stalled in Congress.

“This is not just terrible for parents and kids, but our economy as a whole,” said Murray in a press release last month.

“The reality is that when parents can’t work because of child care, that’s not just a problem for them —it’s one more position a small business can’t fill, it’s one less link in our supply chain moving things along, and ultimately it’s one more strain on our economy as a whole.”

Editor’s note: This story is the second of a two-part series on the state of child care accesibility in Grays Harbor.