A new report has found childcare services in the Kimberley are running at less than 70 per cent capacity on average despite high demand, with the situation exacerbating existing workforce shortages.
WA's north-west is one of the hardest places to secure childcare and early education in Australia, with parents seeking to return to work unable to do so.
Staff shortages have also caused a number of childcare centres to close in the region, forcing people consider leaving the Kimberley.
A Kimberley Development Commission (KDC) report released today surveyed childcare centres in the region to understand why the industry was struggling.
Despite high demand, the report found childcare centres were collectively running at 69 per cent capacity, with low wages, lack of affordable housing and high attrition rates driving staff shortages.
KDC head Chuck Berger said the lack of services was creating what he described as an "economic bottleneck", preventing parents from getting back to work.
"That's going to depress the economy across the whole region if we have workers who want to work, but who aren't able [to] because they can't find childcare," he said.
Mr Berger said staff shortages meant accessing childcare in the Kimberley was significantly harder than metro areas, with high demand creating long wait lists.
"In the Perth metro area, there's about one early childhood slot available for every two children, in the Kimberley, that's one for every six," Mr Berger said.
"Where families are actually trying to get a slot, it's a little bit like a lottery, and most of the centres are reporting a 12-to-24-month waitlist."
Shortages cause extra stress for parents
Broome mother of two Kim Brown youngest child lost a spot at childcare due to staff shortages.
She said juggling caring for her kids and full time work wasn't sustainable.
"You get frustrated at your ability to put in what you should be [at] work … you're trying to juggle that and being a mum," she said.
Ms Brown said she could work from home, but feared the childcare shortage in the Kimberley would pose bigger problems for essential workers who couldn't.
"We are going to lose essential workers to this region — we're going to lose the teachers, we're going to lose doctors and nurses and those services," she said.
No childcare in remote communities
The KDC report found there were no formal childcare facilities in any of the 74 remote communities in the Kimberley, except a long-running centre in Warmun.
"This means the families of approximately 697 children 0-4 years and 1,152 children 5-12 years have no access to centre-based childcare," according to the report.
Mr Berger said the absence of childcare posed barriers for people in those communities who would like to work.
"If you're in a remote community that lack of childcare is going to be a really serious issue," he said.
"Unless you've got family or other arrangements, then it's really hard to make it stack up … financially and practically."
Solutions to workforce shortages
The report pointed to case studies of childcare centres in the Kimberley bucking the staff shortage trend, by providing training and development as well as employing long-time locals.
Mr Berger said another solution was to make it economically viable for people living in the region who wanted to work in the sector to do so.
"That's not only going to help unblock this bottleneck that we've got in the economy here, it's also going to get people working," he said.
But if the problem persisted it would put "a cap on the prosperity of the region" and businesses would not be able to start or expand as they grew, Mr Berger said.
"We're going to miss lots of opportunities unless we can fix this," he said.
