BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD)– Across the Greater Baton Rouge Area, there is a high demand for early childhood education teachers. 

“We’ll set up 4 interviews in a day and we are lucky if one just shows up,” said Early Learning Center Pam Brignac.

A shortage of teachers and staff hit local preschools and early learning centers.

“Once we were able to open the doors back up for all of the children, that’s when we really started feeling the shortage,” said Brignac.

Stepping Stones Early Learning Academy Director Crystal Michel said this problem has been going on since November.

“It’s the same everywhere, they’ll put in an application but no one ever comes,” said Michel.

Many preschools believe unemployment may be the cause.

“One of our ladies told us that, in order to get unemployment you must do three work applications a week,” said Michel.

Pam Brignac said people would click and ditch their job applications.

“We thought when they reduced it back at the end of July, I thought it would solve that problem, but as of this week it hasn’t solved it yet,” said Brignac.

With school starting back up in Aug., and increasing classrooms this teacher and staff shortage could be a major problem.

“Right now, we don’t have the manpower to keep up with everything,” said Michel.

Less help meant more work for current teachers.

“It tires them out and sometimes they need a break because they are working 40 plus hours,”  said Michel.

Preschool directors hope things start to turn around soon.

The enhanced federal unemployment benefits end this Saturday, July 31st