News

By Jaime Rechkemmer, Aim4Impact Consulting, LLC, Smart Start of Mecklenburg County Board Member

If there were a supply chain crisis in Charlotte -- if shipping stalled, trucks couldn't roll, or key materials dried up -- businesses would sound every alarm. CEOs would call emergency meetings. Banks, chambers, and industry leaders would be strategizing late into the night to get operations moving again.

And yet, here we are -- in the middle of a workforce crisis built on a child care collapse -- and too many big businesses are still waiting for someone else to fix it. Waiting for a bailout. Waiting for a government program. Waiting for philanthropy.

Here's the truth: child care infrastructure keeps your business in business.

🧩 The Missing Piece of the Workforce Puzzle

The number one reason employees don't show up, turn down shifts, or quit isn't "work ethic." It's child care. Parents can't work when care is closed, unavailable, or unaffordable. Teachers can't stay when wages don't pay their bills.

The ripple effect hits every sector -- manufacturing, banking, healthcare, education, hospitality, technology, energy, automotive. When the people who care for children can't afford to stay in the field, the whole local economy wobbles. We've talked for years about "the child care crisis" as if it's a niche social issue. It's not. It's an economic infrastructure issue. And infrastructure is everyone's business.

📊 The Numbers That Should Keep Us Up at Night

In Mecklenburg County, thousands of licensed child care seats sit empty: not because of low demand, but because we can't find and keep qualified staff. Many teachers earn $13-$16 an hour. In Charlotte, the living wage for an adult with one child is over $30 an hour. Most teachers can't afford the care they provide.

Programs are cutting hours, closing classrooms, or raising tuition beyond what families can pay. The result? Businesses lose workers, workers lose income, and children lose stable care. This is not sustainable. But it's fixable, if we treat it with the same urgency we'd bring to any other business-critical disruption.

💼 What Big Business Can Do--Now

1. Invest directly in child care infrastructure. Sponsor classrooms or teaching positions at nearby centers and in family child care homes. Offer rent support, shared HR benefits, or scholarships for employees' children. Create community standards that exemplify the policies our children, families, teachers, and neighbors believe in to show the legislators it can be done.
2. Join forces. Create a regional childcare consortium -- a coalition of employers pooling dollars for shared subsidies, backup care, and teacher benefits. Sign up for Tricare and promote your participation to your employees. Become a Family Forward NC-certified organization and encourage your fellow businesses to do the same.
3. Adopt a center or family child care home. Partner with a local program and offer ongoing support: equipment upgrades, leadership training, or paid planning time for teachers. Send your staff to volunteer and read/play/sing/dance/do puppet shows/run around outside with children, improve the landscape, cut out cubbie tags -- just DO SOMETHING.
4. Fund the workforce pipeline. Support apprenticeships at CPCC and UNCC so future educators can earn while they learn -- and stay in Mecklenburg after graduation. Speaking of staying after graduation: what can you do to ensure that early educators have the same supports as other essential workers like access to good lending, healthcare, retirement, wellness, and such?
5. Use your influence. Business leaders have the voice that gets heard in legislative rooms. Use it to push for sustainable public-private funding models -- not just one-time grants. And put your money where your mouth is: be the first to commit to sustainable investments in childcare for the community.

❤️ Why It Matters

When you invest in early educators, you're not just helping kids--you're stabilizing your own workforce. Every childcare teacher who stays in their job means five to ten parents can stay in theirs. Every center that survives means dozens of employees in other sectors get to keep showing up.

This is a supply chain issue. The product is human potential.

🚀 Charlotte Can Lead

We already know what works. Communities of Practice. Shared substitute pools. Wage floors, WAGE$, and TEACH scholarships. Paid apprenticeships. Planning time that's actually protected. Mental health support. We can measure the impact: calmer classrooms, lower turnover, higher family satisfaction, fewer incidents, stronger child outcomes.

The data is there. The partnerships are forming. The energy is real. Now, we just need the business community to show up: not as donors, but as co-owners of the solution.

Stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for a government miracle. If this were any other supply chain problem, you'd be on the phone already. Child care is your supply chain. It's time to fix it together.

Jamie Rechkemmer was a panelist at the Inaugural Mecklenburg County Early Childhood Summit that took place Thursday, Oct. 23 in Charlotte, NC. Business and thought leaders from around the county and state convened upon the Queen City to raise awareness and propose solutions to curb the child care crisis effecting countless families in our community.