CHIBA, Japan - Municipalities neighboring major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka are increasingly concerned about losing childcare workers to better-paying jobs in the metropolises, prompting them to offer wage supplements and seek national action to narrow the gap.
About 60 percent of childcare workers who responded to a Chiba Prefecture survey released in March said they wanted to work in Tokyo. Among those, almost 70 percent cited pay and benefits as reasons.
Respondents also expressed frustration with their pay. "The pay does not match the workload at all," one said, while another said, "We are entrusted with children's lives. I want the pay scale raised further."
Part of the pay gap reflects the national funding system for childcare services, under which wage supplements to basic salaries vary by region. For example, the rate for Tokyo's 23 wards is 20 percent, higher than the maximum of 16 percent in neighboring Chiba Prefecture.
In an effort to prevent childcare workers from leaving for other cities, Chiba's Funabashi, where the supplement rate is 12 percent, offers its own top-up allowance of more than 500,000 yen ($3,200) a year as an additional incentive.
"We need 1.5 billion yen a year for the program. That's a lot of money, but we are scraping together the funds to secure staff," a city official said.
Competition for personnel has also intensified. The nationwide job availability ratio for childcare workers stood at 3.88 in January, meaning there were 388 jobs available for every 100 job seekers. That was well above the average ratio of 1.27 across all occupations.
MotherPlanet Co., which operates nurseries in the Chiba cities of Kashiwa and Nagareyama, has begun offering local university students up to 20,000 yen a month if they intend to work at its facilities after graduating.
"Childcare is all about people," said company president Atsuhiro Yabumoto, 49. "Improving pay and working conditions in turn leads to better quality of care."
Meanwhile in western Japan's Nara Prefecture, about 48 percent of childcare training school graduates in fiscal 2023 found jobs outside the prefecture. Officials believe many went to neighboring Osaka.
After Nara Prefecture began offering workers an extra 10,000 yen a month in fiscal 2024, the rate dropped to 42 percent. But a prefectural official lamented, "There is only so much local governments can do."
In July this year, the five prefectures of Chiba, Saitama, Nara, Wakayama and Saga took the issue to the national level, calling on the Children and Families Agency to improve pay and working conditions and address regional disparities.
The agency has since launched a nationwide survey of local governments and plans to table its proposed changes by around December.
