Babysitters Commanding Higher Rates in the Middle of Labor Shortage

babysitting babysitters Babysitter Wages

By Joel Brussels , Parent Herald May 21, 11:59 am

Photo: (Photo : JEROEN JUMELET/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Babysitters are now commanding higher rates and getting other perks on top of that, providing a major shock to parents, who now get out more as the COVID pandemic gradually wanes. According to the Wall Street Journal, the sought-after labor force, which includes its traditionally teenaged cohort, is now commanding wages as much as $30 an hour.

Rachel Wolfe wrote in the article that parents are returning to their office jobs and social lives after two years of hunkering down at home with their children and they are now competing for part-time sitters at the same time. Wolfe added that teens are getting better snacks, doing fewer mundane chores and are commanding top dollar with their babysitting jobs.

Emma Sharkansky is one example of that with the 19-year-old Massachusetts teen revealing in an interview that she is now making up to $30 an hour, compared with the $12 rate she earned a few years ago.

Inflation rate for babysitter pay surged to 12 percent in 2022

Sharkansky was clearly delighted with the changes, saying "It used to be you walked in and were all shy and saying thank you so much and feeling grateful to get a little spending money. Now, I'm walking in and they are thanking me more than I could possibly thank them."

Sean Greene, the founder and CEO of baby sitter network platform Bambino, told NBC News that the $30 rate is on the extreme end of the kid-caretaker pay spectrum. Greene said he is not surprised, though, to learn that some teenagers are commanding that kind of amount.

The inflation rate for babysitter pay was about 2 percent before the COVID pandemic. That increased to about 7 percent in 2021 and then surged to 12 percent in 2022.

Greene added that 20 years ago, a babysitter's pay would be in the single digits, usually less than $10 an hour. Now it is very common to see $15 to $20, and sometimes even up to $30 an hour for the pay of a babysitter.

Millenial parents willing to pay more for babysitters

Anyone available to babysit can command top dollar nowadays thanks in large part to the ongoing labor shortage, according to Greene. He said that millennial parents appear even more willing to pay out the nose for babysitters, simply because it is all they have ever known.

Federal data show that for teenagers looking to get a sitter job, there has never been a better time to enter the labor market. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for 16 to 19 year-olds now stands at 10.2 percent, the lowest for that cohort since the 1950s.

That means any teen that is looking for a job will likely be able to find one. The data also show that this age cohort is making as much as $566 a week, or about $28 an hour on average for someone who is working 20 hours a week.