Even Daycare Centers Feeling Squeezed

Well, when I read this one, I thought it does make sense, although it’s not one of the first businesses you typically think would be threatened by a severe recession, but coupled with high unemployment numbers, you’d better bet you’ll start seeing daycare businesses suffering. And why not, since many of the work force are parents who have to pay daycare businesses to keep their children during the day while they go off to work and make the money for the household?

With many daycare agencies and businesses making up to a grand a month for watching people’s kids during the week when they are at work, some agencies have had to drop their prices to keep people coming, and some have had to even close their doors because their enrollment has gone down too much to make the business a profitable one. Daycare, once a booming business, in many states and towns, has become a virtual ghost town for customers and they are suffering, like most other businesses in this increasingly barren economy.

This domino effect has been happening to daycare centers just in the last few months, as the effects of unemployment and reduction in force, reduction in pay and expenses has taken it’s toll on the American family. Sure, people are saving on what can many times be expensive daycare, but they are also out of a job and having to cut back in many other ways since their income has dried up. Unemployment benefits pay for a percentage of your pay, and not even for more than a few months usually, so when that dries up, then there really are some problems.

It’s a shame too, because kids being at home in these increasingly stressful family environments is good neither for child or parent, and the effects will most likely be seen on the family unit as well. Heck, there are already stories of family dysfunction and divorce that are directly attributed to this economy now. Hopefully we can all just look at this as a thing of the past soon. There are some signs that a recovery may be on the way according to some, but we still have a ways to go for hanging in there.