While long-term planning is essential, immediate action is also possible, especially from employers.

Recognizing the systemic nature of the child care challenge is essential, but so is identifying where practical action can begin. Employers have a key role to play. While housing and infrastructure improvements require long timelines and major capital, child care solutions offer more immediate and targeted opportunities. These strategies are more feasible for businesses to implement, and they deliver measurable returns.

Why Child Care Is a Smart Workforce Investment

A 2024 Boston Consulting Group study found that employer support for child care yields a 425% return on investment, driven by better retention, reduced absenteeism, and higher productivity. For businesses looking to strengthen their workforce, child care is not just a social good; it’s a cost-effective investment in long-term stability and growth.

Flyer from *Northeast Minnesota Small Business Child Care Cohort.* Contact us if you’re interested in joining a future cohort.

A Regional Approach to Employer Solutions

Still, because solutions are not one-size-fits-all, many employers don’t know where to begin. To help, Rural Pathways and Moms First launched the Northeast Minnesota Small Business Child Care Cohort. This free, three-session program connects small and mid-sized employers (under 500 employees) with child care providers to co-design customized workplace strategies.

Collaboration with Providers Is Key

What sets the cohort apart is the direct collaboration with providers. Employers gain real insight into the daily challenges families and providers face, ensuring that solutions are both realistic and rooted in lived experience.

Start by Strengthening What Exists

Employers don’t need to build onsite centers to make a difference. In fact, the most effective and sustainable first step is often supporting existing providers, many of whom are operating under capacity due to staffing shortages and limited revenue. Even modest actions like reserving slots, offering stipends, adjusting schedules, or forming referral partnerships can stabilize local programs and expand access for employees. These proven, lower-cost strategies are already working in other communities, and they can work here too.

How Employers Can Help

Low- or no-cost strategies include:

Flexible scheduling
Child care stipends
Partnerships with local providers
Referral and navigation support for employees

Child Care Is Economic Infrastructure

This is not just about raising awareness. It is about taking action. And for that action to be effective, solutions must address both access and affordability. Families need care they can find and afford. Supporting working families and stabilizing the workforce is essential to reversing the $36 million annual loss Northeast Minnesota is experiencing.

Economic development used to be about adding jobs. Today, it’s about making sure people can fill them, and that starts with access to care. Our policies and practices must evolve to meet this new reality and invest in the systems that allow people—especially parents—to participate fully in the workforce and community.

The message is clear: Child care is not a side issue. It is foundational to a thriving economy.

Ready to get started?

Complete this short questionnaire from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and EPIC to assess your workplace child care readiness.

Want to Learn More or Join the Effort?

Contact Rural Pathways to take part in a local solution that supports families, strengthens businesses, and builds a more resilient, inclusive regional economy starting with child care.

Citation: Anderson, Charity & Gilpin, Staci. (2025). Part Two: Solving the Workforce Shortage Starts with Child Care. Rural Pathways News.

Part 2: Solving the Workforce Shortage Starts with Child Care