About the survey

A total of 762 people responded to the survey which was carried out online at the end of 2014. Early childhood education workers shared their experiences of workplace health and safety as part of a larger survey at the end of 2014 that also canvassed views on the quality of their early childhood service, conditions of employment and job satisfaction.

The respondents included carers, teachers, senior teachers, and managers working at ECE centres and home-based agencies. The survey did not include service owners as it was designed to gauge staff illness, injuries and other employment matters. Nearly all staff were in permanent employment (89%), with the remainder in other positions such as fixed-term, casual, and regular volunteer. 

Most staff were fully qualified and held or were working toward their full teacher registration status (85%).  They tended to be women (96.5%), and aged 25 to 44 (51%) or 45 to 64 (41%) years.

The majority of respondents worked at childcare centres (76%) as to be expected since this is the part of the sector with the largest workforce.  Other staff worked at Kindergartens (16%), Home-based agencies (4%), and Playcentres, Kohanga Reo, hospital-based services and playgroups (4%).

Half the staff worked in the private sector and half in the community/public sector.

The largest number of staff represented in the survey came from the Auckland (31%) region, Wellington (13%), Canterbury/ West Coast (10%), and Bay of Plenty/ Gisborne regions (9%).  Manawatu-Wanganui/ Taranaki(9%),Waikato (8%), and Otago (7%).  Southland had the smallest number of respondents (2%).  

In the first appendix to this report are two graphs showing results by region on:  1. Whether staff had experienced workplace-related harm in the past 12 months and 2. The prevalence of bullying.

The second appendix contains a small selection of the personal examples of injuries, stress and bullying as reported by respondents.