A new paper by the assembly’s economy committee, ‘Parental employment in London’, has warned that London is missing out on skills because parents, particularly mothers, are being forced into lower-paid, less secure part-time jobs or out of work altogether in a bid to reduce childcare costs.
Parental employment is lower in London than the rest of the UK, particularly for mothers in a couple, of whom 63 per cent are in employment in the capital compared to 73 per cent across the rest of the country, the study said.
According to statistics published by the assembly, London families spend a higher proportion of their income on childcare and travel than the rest of the UK, with some paying more than £20,000 a year for 50 hours of childcare weekly for a child under two. Holiday and after-school care costs in the capital are said to have risen by more than nine per cent in 2012.
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