The hours of child daycare workers vary. Many centers are open 12 or more hours a day and cannot close until all of the children are picked up by their parents or guardians. Unscheduled overtime, traffic jams, and other types of emergencies can cause parents or guardians to be late. Nearly one third of the full-time employees in the child daycare services industry work more than 40 hours per week. Self-employed workers tend to work longer hours than do their salaried counterparts. The industry also offers many opportunities for part-time work—about a third of all employees worked part time in 2002.

Many child daycare workers become dissatisfied with their jobs' stressful conditions, low pay, and lack of benefits and eventually leave. The proportion of child daycare workers who need to be replaced each year is much higher than the average for all occupations.