The first Friday of each month, The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the prior month’s job report. The June 2021 Jobs Report showed the United States adding a healthy 850,000 jobs.  But how are childcare industry fairing in the economy? The chart below shows the number of people (in thousands) who are employed in the childcare since 2011. As you can see there were consistent increases in the number of people working in childcare for those 10 years up until Feb of 2020 when the COVID-19 Pandemic hit and decimated the industry. While the child care industry is recovering, you can see that compared to the high point of Feb 2020, the industry is still down 11 percent of jobs. It will be important to watch this number in the coming months both for health of the child care industry and the United States economy as a whole as more people go back to work and need child care.