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Led by Child Care Now, Educators Matter is a three-year national initiative (2023–2026) focused on strengthening Canada’s early learning and child care (ELCC) workforce. The project examines how wages, benefits, professional development, and working conditions shape recruitment, retention, and quality across the system. Through research, policy mapping, and collaboration with educators, advocates, and policymakers, Educators Matter seeks to identify the gaps and opportunities in current workforce policy and practice.

This presentation at the Economic Developers' Council of Ontario examines the role of early childhood education in economic development, comparing labour market-focused and child-centered approaches. It explores early childhood educators' impact on maternal workforce participation, challenges in childcare access, and salary comparisons with other professions, highlighting compensation, workforce density, and retention.

In this presentation Dr. Emis Akbari and Kelly Emery examine the challenges facing the early childhood education workforce. It addresses issues such as low wages, staffing shortages, and quality concerns. The presentation also addresses promising practices, including recruitment and retention strategies, wages, and benefits.

Presented by Dr. Emis Akbari, Executive Director of the Atkinson Centre at OISE/University of Toronto, to the Early Learning and Child Care sector at Red River College, Winnipeg, on February 7, 2025. This presentation explores the challenges facing Canada’s ECE workforce—job satisfaction, discrimination, wages, stress, and ECE spending—while highlighting promising practices shaping the sector’s future.

In this article by Dr. Emis Akbari and Kerry McCuaig, the authors explore the critical need for a professional early childhood education workforce in Canada. They highlight how ECEs are undervalued, underpaid, and under-resourced. The authors argue that improving wages, benefits, professional development, and training is essential to ensure ECEs can provide the high-quality care children require.

This Atkinson Centre blog highlights the ongoing challenges women face in achieving fair work conditions and gender equality within the early childhood sector. It stresses the need for early learning and child care investments to improve wages, working conditions, and unionization, addressing the workforce crisis and policy impacts while advocating for educator recognition and support.

This Atkinson Centre blog explores the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care agreement’s goal to expand affordable child care. It highlights workforce challenges, including job vacancies and low wages for educators. The blog calls for improved compensation and working conditions, drawing lessons from Quebec’s sector bargaining to help attract and retain qualified early childhood educators nationwide.