90 Employees Needed To Fully Staff Kindergartens

About 90 employees are needed at preschools in Reykjavík to be considered fully staffed, reports RÚV.

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The staffing problem has been one of the kindergartens’ biggest challenges. More than 500 children aged 12 months and older are still waiting for a place.

Almost 95% of the full-time positions at Reykjavík’s preschools have been filled, but they still need about 90 employees to staff them fully. For comparison, 122 positions were to be filled on August 25.

Hjördís Rut Sigurjónsdóttir, Information Officer of the School and Recreation Department of the City of Reykjavík, says that recruitment to the kindergartens is going better than expected, but this shows how many full-time positions are available at the preschools.

However, the staffing problem extends further, as only 78% of the full-time positions in leisure centers and special social centers in the city have been filled, and around 60 employees are needed to fill those positions. 545 children are waiting for a place in leisure centers, which is considerably less than at the beginning of the month when more than 900 children did not have a place.

“Recruitment for the kindergartens is going beyond expectations and it is clear that the actions taken by the City of Reykjavík have yielded results, such as advertisements and a new application website. Recruitment at leisure centers and special community centers is going well, but they usually last until the fall. How it works varies from neighborhood to neighborhood,” says Hjördís Rut.