Nevada parents working night shifts face shrinking overnight childcare as 24-hour facilities fall from 71 to 35

What happened

Nevada parents who work nights, early mornings and weekends have fewer licensed childcare options than they did several years ago, The Nevada Independent reported. The number of facilities offering 24-hour care fell from 71 in 2018 to 35, according to state licensing reports and current figures from Molly Moser, public information officer for Nevada's Child Care & Development Program and Child Care Licensing.

Of the 35 remaining facilities, 26 are in Southern Nevada and nine are in the north. Rural areas, including mining communities such as Elko, have few or no formal overnight options, the outlet reported.

Why demand is high in Nevada

Parents working nontraditional hours

About 44 percent of Nevada children younger than 6 in working families have parents who work before 7 a.m. or after 6 p.m. on weekdays, or any time on weekends, according to a 2021 Urban Institute analysis cited by The Nevada Independent. That is the second-highest share of any state, behind Mississippi, and above the national average of 36 percent. The share reaches 70 percent for children of working single parents.

The Las Vegas night shift

Among the country's 100 largest metro areas, the Las Vegas metro had the highest share of night-shift workers, about 10.3 percent or roughly 112,000 people, according to a 2022 analysis of census data by the home services company Porch. Statewide the share was 9.5 percent, compared with about 6 percent nationally.

Round-the-clock industries keep growing

Warehousing and storage employment in Nevada rose from about 18,400 jobs to 42,100 between 2017 and 2025, the outlet reported. Leisure and hospitality, the sector that includes casinos, accounted for about 360,700 jobs in 2025, nearly 23 percent of all jobs in the state.

Why providers are pulling back

Capacity limits and licensing

Under state rules, a licensed family home can care for no more than six children and a group home no more than 12. Centers open between 9 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. must keep one caregiver for every six children younger than 3 and one for every 10 older children, and night staff must stay awake the whole shift. Glaiza Giron, who has run round-the-clock care from her Golden Valley home for more than two decades, told The Nevada Independent, "We're capped for overnight care."

Giron said that when Washoe County's childcare licensing program folded into the state's in 2024, 24-hour providers had to rewrite their policies. She believes that extra work pushed some of them to stop.

Low enrollment and disappearing home providers

Moser said low enrollment is the top reason facilities cut back their hours. Chelsea Sliter, family resource director at the Reno-based nonprofit Children's Cabinet, said parents prefer a home setting for overnight care, but those options are shrinking. Nevada had 471 licensed family childcare homes in 2009, according to the Children's Cabinet, and 101 by the end of 2024, according to state licensing data. Sliter said the state is now down to 76.

Pay is also low. Nevada childcare workers earned a median wage of $11.92 an hour in 2022, according to the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. Giron charges $65 a day, with the Children's Cabinet covering $40 of that for families on subsidies.

What it means for families and employers

Families who cannot find licensed overnight care mostly turn to relatives, friends, neighbors or alternating shifts between two working parents. Sliter said those arrangements can bring "transportation challenges, sleep disruptions for children, employment instability."

Forty-seven percent of 433 Nevada businesses surveyed by the state in 2023 said childcare access was an impediment, and the Governor's Office of Workforce Innovation, citing a 2025 CNBC analysis, puts the resulting productivity losses at about $1 billion a year. Only 5.5 percent of surveyed businesses offered on-site childcare. Amazon offers no childcare subsidy, on-site care or referral service of its own, and the MGM Grand cut overnight hours at its 24-hour childcare center in 2017, citing low demand, the outlet reported.

What to watch next

• Whether lawmakers take up changes Sliter said would likely have to come through the Legislature, such as higher subsidy reimbursement rates for providers.
• Elko-area provider Lacey Osterberg plans to raise her hourly rates by $1 in January, and her overnight plans remain on hold despite a 24-hour license granted in June.
• Tesla, Panasonic, Switch, Google and several casino resorts had not responded to The Nevada Independent's questions about childcare benefits for overnight workers.