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As students return to classrooms in the United States, many parents are still not able to return to work.
在美国，随着学生重返教室，许多家长仍无法重返工作岗位。
They are finding that after-school childcare programs are in short supply.
他们发现课后托儿项目供不应求。
School-based providers list difficulties in hiring and keeping workers as the biggest reasons they have not fully recovered from pandemic shutdowns.
以学校为基础的提供者将招聘和留住员工的困难列为他们尚未从疫情歇业中完全恢复的最大原因。
Providers say they are as worried about the situation as the parents who are without childcare.
提供者说，他们和那些没有人帮忙照顾孩子的父母一样担心这种情况。
"We're in a constant state of flux. We'll hire one staffer and another will resign. We've just not been able to catch up this year," said Ester Buendia.
埃斯特·布恩迪亚说：“我们处于不断的变化中。我们雇佣一名员工，另一名员工辞职。我们今年没能赶上这种人员流动的速度。”
She is assistant director for after-school programs at Northside Independent School District in Texas.
她是得克萨斯州北区独立学区课后项目的助理主任。
Before the pandemic, the local after-school program Learning Tree had 1,000 workers.
在疫情之前，当地的课后项目“学习树”有1000名员工。
They served more than 7,000 students at about 100 elementary and middle schools.
他们为大约100所中小学的7000多名学生提供服务。
Today, there are fewer than 500 employees serving about 3,300 students.
如今，只有不到500名员工为大约3300名学生提供服务。
More than 1,100 students are on waiting lists for the program.
超过1100名学生在该项目的等待名单上。
It provides educational, recreational and social activities every school day, outside of school hours.
它在每个上学日的课后时间提供教育、娱乐和社交活动。
Studies suggest parents, mostly mothers, are staying home for their children because they are unable to find after-school programming.
研究表明，家长（大部分是母亲）之所以待在家里照顾孩子，是因为他们找不到课后项目。
That causes worker shortages at such programs that depend heavily on women to run them.
这导致了这类严重依赖女性运营的项目出现劳动力短缺的情况。
"There's no doubt really that these after-school programs--the lack of after-school programs--are limiting women in particular being able to reenter the workforce," said Jen Rinehart.
珍·莱因哈特说：“毫无疑问，这些课后项目——课后项目的缺乏——尤其限制了女性重返职场。”
She leads planning and programming for the nonprofit group Afterschool Alliance.
她领导非营利组织“课后联盟”的规划工作。
"If women don't return to the workforce, then we don't have the staff we need for these after-school opportunities, so it's all very tangled together," she said.
她说：“如果女性不重返职场，那么我们就没有足够的员工来提供这些课后服务，所以这一切都很混乱。”
An Afterschool Alliance study found a record high of 24.6 million children were unable to enter a program at the end of 2021.
“课后联盟”的一项研究发现，截至2021年底，有2460万名儿童无法参加此类项目，创下历史新高。
The researchers looked at more than 1,000 program providers.
研究人员调查了1000多家项目提供商。
They found 54 percent had waiting lists, a much larger share than in the past.
他们发现，有54%的人在等待名单上，这一比例比过去大得多。
Wells Fargo reported that labor shortages in childcare are more severe than in other industries also struggling to find dependable employees.
富国银行报告称，儿童保育行业的劳动力短缺问题比其他也在努力寻找可靠员工的行业更为严重。
Employment was 12.4 percent below its pre-COVID-19 level at the beginning of March.
3月初，就业人数比新冠疫情之前低了12.4%。
That leaves an estimated 460,000 families forced to make other plans, the researchers found.
研究人员发现，估计有46万个家庭被迫制定其他计划。
Erica Gonzalez of San Antonio got after-school care for her daughters who are in second and sixth grade.
圣安东尼奥的埃丽卡·冈萨雷斯的两个女儿分别上二年级和六年级，她们都得到了课后照顾。
That permitted her to keep her job at a nonprofit and her husband, a teacher, to also coach.
这让她得以保住她在一家非营利机构的工作，而她当老师的丈夫也可以执教。
Gonzalez had made sure to register her children for Learning Tree as early as possible.
冈萨雷斯尽早为她的孩子们注册了“学习树”。
She also kept in contact with the girls' schools through the process.
在此过程中，她还与女子学校保持联系。
Gonzalez said, "We were really just kind of hoping and praying" for placement in the program.
冈萨雷斯说，“我们真的只是希望和祈祷”能参加这个项目。
The Afterschool Alliance survey found that 71 percent of programs had taken action to hold on to its workers and appeal to job seekers.
课后联盟的调查发现，71%的项目已经采取措施留住员工，吸引求职者。
The most common measure was to increase wages.
最常见的措施是提高工资。
In some cases, programs used federal pandemic relief money in the form of childcare awards.
在某些情况下，项目以儿童保育奖励的形式使用联邦疫情救济资金。
Some also have offered free childcare for employees as well as extra money or paid time off.
一些项目还为员工提供免费的托儿服务，以及额外的钱或带薪假期。
Rinehart described a "tremendous unmet demand for after-school and summer programs" even before the pandemic.
莱因哈特说，即使在疫情之前，“对课后和暑期项目的巨大需求也没有得到满足”。
She said the health crisis has made the problem worse.
她说，健康危机使这一问题更加严重。
I'm Jonathan Evans.
乔纳森·埃文斯为您播报。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
