Renting in Australia is unaffordable for over 99% of ECEC educators

Less than one per cent of the advertised rental properties in Australia are within the budget of early childhood education and care (ECEC) essential workers, new research from Anglicare Australia has found. 

The charity looked at nearly 46,000 properties available for rent at one time across the country, finding that many essential workers cannot afford to live in the communities their jobs are supposed to serve.

Along with early childhood educators, nurses and aged care workers are being driven into rental stress according to the survey, which was released yesterday, showing that in these occupation groups only 1 in 100 rentals is considered affordable. 

The snapshot, taken on 17 March, looked at 45,895 rental listings across the country and calculated how many were available for less than 30 per cent of the award rate for 16 categories of essential workers, a watermark of affordability. 

It found early childhood educators, hospitality workers and meat packers could only afford 0.9 per cent of listings available across Australia that weekend.

Aged care workers could afford 1.1 per cent of rentals, nurses 1.5 per cent, and ambulance drivers 2.4 per cent.

Kasy Chambers, Executive Director of Anglicare Australia, which conducted the snapshot, said the numbers help explain why essential industries are facing labour shortages, as workers cannot afford to live in areas where the shortfall is the worst.

“Virtually no part of Australia is affordable for aged care workers, early childhood educators, cleaners, nurses and many other essential workers we rely on,” she said. 

“They cannot afford to live in their own communities.”

Even in regional Australia, where prices have historically provided respite from the turbo-charged urban centres, homes were unaffordable on the whole unless they were so remote jobs were not widely available.

Ms Chambers said the private housing market has failed those on low incomes, with rental vacancies at a record low 0.8 per cent despite a record high number of homes built over the last 10 years.

“The best way to make rentals more affordable is to build social and affordable homes,” she said.

“And we need tax reform to put people in need of homes, not investors, at the centre of our system.” 

The findings drew a concerned series of comments from Thrive by Five Director Jay Weatherill who said Thrive by Five supports improved pay and conditions for early childhood educators comparable to the salary and conditions of the school education sector to ensure Australia has a universally accessible, high-quality early learning system for all children and families.

“Early childhood educators are crucial for delivering a universally accessible, high-quality early learning system in Australia,” he continued.

“The findings from Anglicare show that early childhood educators are locked out of virtually every rental market in the country which highlights the deep impact of cost of living pressures on essential workers.