By providing child care assistance to employees working outside the hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., companies can counterbalance employee absenteeism, turnover and overtime, while also achieving significant reductions in costs, the survey found.

Eleven percent of daytime operations sponsor child care facilities, while another 20 percent offer resource and referral services. However, less than one percent of U.S. companies provide child care assistance to extended hours employees, the study found.

Difficulties securing child care are major contributors to the high rates of absenteeism, turnover and, as a consequence, overtime costs at companies with extended hours operations. The study, "Cost Benefits of Child Care for Extended Hours Operations," found that 31 percent of America's 24 million extended hours workers -- nearly half of whom are in white-collar or service occupations -- have children under age 18. Approximately 28 percent of American women regularly work nights, evenings or weekends; 3.5 million extended hours workers are mothers with children under 18.

Highlights from the analysis include:

• Child care benefits offer major opportunity to curb related costs. Costs associated with absenteeism in extended hours operations decreased by $300 annually per employee if some form of extended hours child care was available.  Various studies find that providing extended hours childcare can reduce the absenteeism rate by an average of 20 percent.
• Turnover rates among extended hour employees decreased to 7.7 percent from 9.3 percent when extended hours child care services were available, due in part to improved employee loyalty and morale. Given the $25,000 average cost of recruiting and training each new extended hour employee, this represents a savings opportunity.
• Overtime at extended hours operations decreased by a third (from 12 to 8 percent) when extended hours child care was available in the vicinity of the workplace -- presumably due to a lower need for co-workers to cover for absences due to another employee's child care problems.
• In a hypothetical example, a facility with 1,000 workers achieved a 22 percent return on investment three years after opening an on-site child care center.  After five years the estimated return rose to 100 percent.

"Child care benefits on site or locally will likely produce even better results for companies with 24/7 operations," said the Jennifer Allen, the study author. "Companies running extended hours have higher absenteeism and turnover to begin with, so a child care benefit may reduce those costly problems more dramatically." 

She added that as the economy improves and competition stiffens for employees, companies with child care benefits will have an edge recruiting and retaining new and highly skilled extended hours employees.

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