Helping Your Nanny Find a New Job

The short answer is yes. Accordingly to my nanny, there are more nannies looking for work vs families looking for families. A number of her friends are looking for work and have been looking for 3 months (or more). 

 

This was something I experienced recently as well when trying to help our longtime nanny find new families for a nanny share. She mentioned to me that August and September are particularly difficult times because that’s when the school year starts—many preschools follow the traditional school year, meaning lots of families are transitioning their kids out of nanny-care situations and into preschool/school, so there’s kind of a flood of qualified, experienced nannies all looking for work in the fall.  

My only advice is to keep posting about your nanny—I wrote reference posts for her in various Facebook groups (Berkeley Moms, Oakland Moms, etc.), a neighborhood WhatsApp group, and ended up reposting our BPN ad for her like three times (republishing it each month after it expired) before something finally clicked.  

I think it is a widespread supply/demand issue. We have been looking for a new family for our nanny share since July and are only now getting more responses, but only with folks who want to start in January. Our nanny has said the other nannies she has talked to at the park are also struggling to find new families (either a similar situation to yours, or new families for nanny shares). Hopefully your nanny can find new work soon! 

I'm having the same issues... my wonderful nanny still hasn't found a new family to work with. Its crazy. 

Don’t have an answer but I am experiencing the same thing with our nanny. Will be interested to see what sort of responses you get.

I’ve been wondering about this too because I’m trying to help my nanny’s cousin find a new job. I think in general that the Fall is a bit of a slow time for nanny hiring because so many kids go to school and families transition away from their nannies. However, it does seem even more pronounced this year. My nanny herself has echoed this to me based on what nannies in her network are saying. I’d be interested to see other replies on this thread. 

Hi!  It’s so great you are dedicated to finding your nanny find a new position

We just went through the hiring process and there is definitely a huge supply of highly qualified nannies now.  I think I got 30 responses in 3 days to our post for full time work.

I think there are 2 macro factors at play
1- I read numerous articles talking about how the 0-5 population in Alameda county and other areas is decreasing at high rates.

2-With universal TK on the horizon, many daycares are responding by now offering care for younger kids. 

From our experience, nannies who came prepared with references and were asking for wages that were in line with market rates and their experiences definitely rose to the top.

Good luck to your nanny!
 

There have also been a lot of layoffs recently in the tech industry - that could be impacting what local parents can afford. 

I was thinking about being a nanny, since I love babies and toddlers. In researching it a bit, I was surprised by what most parents (at last parents who posted in public forums) said was the going rate. 

If I had paid over $20-$40/hr and offered vacation/sick days, I would have paid more for childcare than what I was making...about 11 yrs ago and I worked at a nonprofit. Even $15 per hr for a daycare put me over the edge and I ended up quitting my job.

So Bay Area parents want to be generous and maybe that's not feasible for many with the job market, etc. I don't know the solution because no one wants a pay cut and no one wants to suggest a pay cut to someone who's gong to be taking care of their toddler. 

I decided not to try nannying for various reasons, partly because I was from a different demographic than other nannies and the competition for gigs is fierce.