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They’re calling it the nanny wars over in London.

The COVID-19 pandemic (Brexit, too, probably) has left many wanting parents in the lurch as the number of nannies coming to the country has dropped significantly.

Now, many desperate parents are poaching, stealing, breaching contracts, and breaking friendships over sly moves to get the best available nanny.

While British folks queue for hours on end to get a drop of petrol as stations begin to run dry across the country, there seems to be a whole other supply issue going on.

That means that the cost of hiring a nanny lately is immensely expensive.

Via The Daily Mail, the owner of an agency in South-West London – where the nanny war seems to be particularly raging – says that it can now cost £46 000 a year on average to hire a nanny.

That’s around R920 000 a year, or more than R75 000 a month.

Usual prices ranged from £32 000 to £35 000 per year.

Now desperate working parents are paying the price:

The UK is effectively catching up on pre-COVID-19 salaries that once applied only to London.

(In London’s super-rich neighbourhoods, such as Holland Park, it’s normal to pay a 23-year-old nanny £65 000 (R1,3 million a year) plus a £3 000 bonus (R60 000). Not forgetting the expected perks: holidays by private jet, a personal apartment and a top-of-the-range car for the school run.)

When you consider how dry the nanny market is in the area, the maddening cost makes a little more sense:

Travel bans from countries such as Australia and New Zealand mean the number of nannies coming to the UK has fallen to almost zero, while European au pairs, keen to get back to their families as soon as the pandemic struck, are finding new visa requirements make it harder to return.

While everyone worked from home, parents muddled through — but the return to the office has created a perfect storm. Just as mums need childcare, there’s none to be found.

This has led to mothers resorting to nanny poaching to such an extent that families and agencies are starting to go to court claiming a breach of contract:

One of our clients, a lawyer, used one of our nannies for a few months to help the family during a tricky patch. She then said she’d terminated the contract, but continued to use the nanny on the QT at a lower rate (for her — we didn’t get our cut).

That ended when the nanny got fed up with the way she was treated by the children and forwarded us the emails outlining this private arrangement, stitched up behind the agency’s back, which resulted in us starting legal proceedings against the family for breach of contract.

Other parents are pinching nursery nurses and trying to steal friends’ nannies at birthday parties.

With all this desperation in the air, nannies are learning that they don’t need to settle for being paid servants, and are setting their own terms to some extent, too.

Good for them.

[source:thedailymail]