The Hon Jason Clare MP
Minister for Education

Senator The Hon Murray Watt
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

The Hon Dr Anne Aly MP
Minister for Early Childhood Education, Minister for Youth

The historic agreement to deliver a 15 per cent wage increase for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) workers has been formally signed and lodged today with the Fair Work Commission.

The agreement signed today initially covers at least 12,000 ECEC workers across 60 employers.

This is the very first supported multi-employer agreement signed since the Albanese Government changed Australia’s workplace laws to allow more multi-employer bargaining, especially in undervalued, feminised sectors of the economy.

The previous low paid bargaining stream failed to deliver any agreements. The successful conclusion of this multi-employer agreement covering thousands of ECEC workers shows how important the Albanese Government’s changes to multi-employer bargaining have been.

The Albanese Government is providing $3.6 billion to deliver pay rises, available to up to 200,000 ECEC workers, providing them with important help to deal with cost of living pressures.

The wage increase is tied to a requirement for early childhood education and care services to limit fee increases. We want to make sure workers can be fairly paid without the costs being passed on to families. 

Pay rises of 10 per cent above the award rate will start hitting worker pay packets this month, and a further 5 per cent increase from December 2025.

This means a typical ECEC educator who is paid at the award rate will receive a pay rise of at least $103 per week, increasing to at least $155 per week from December 2025.

For a typical early childhood teacher, they’ll receive an additional $166 a week from December this year, increasing to $249 from December of next year.

Since coming to Government, the early learning workforce has grown by more than 30,000 workers, but we recognise we need more.

This investment from the Albanese Government will help retain our existing early childhood educators, who are predominantly women, and help attract new workers to the sector.

ECEC workers are some of the most important workers in the country and they deserve to be paid properly.

As at 4 December 2024.