Multimillion-dollar nannies for families competing for top talent

In a private villa overlooking the almost unrealistically turquoise waters of the Maldives, Cassidy O’Hagan, 28, slides the bedroom curtain to check if the child is still asleep. He is not on a honeymoon or on vacation. It’s working. Hours earlier, the family had arrived on a private jet from New York. She, as part of the “child care team”, traveled with them. For many young people it may seem like an improbable dream. For her—and for a growing number of people her age—it is simply the strongest alternative to a corporate job market they feel is broken. In a world where layoffs are constant, trajectories are falling apart and artificial intelligence begins to compete for the same office positions, dozens of young people are choosing another path: becoming nannies, personal assistants or private chefs for the ultra-rich. An unexpected work turn that, far from being anecdotal, is becoming a global trend. The rise of “billionaire babysitters.” According to Business Insideryoung people from Generation Z are abandoning traditional careers to work in the world of so-called “private service”: from executive assistants and house managers to drivers, chefs or nannies for ultra-high net worth families. The salaries are impressive. Different reports describe salaries ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 annually for nannies and personal assistants in the United States, and £150,000 or more in the United Kingdom, as The Guardian documents. There are even extreme situations: Fortune described an offer of almost $240,000 for a tutor to prepare a one-year-old for future entry to Eton or an elite university. The message between the lines is clear: high-level domestic service has become one of the most profitable, dynamic and competitive employment sectors of the moment. The wealth that sustains it. Behind the boom there is an obvious explanation: global wealth has multiplied. Added to this is what UBS called “the rise of the common millionaire”: 52 million people in the world own between 1 and 5 million dollars in investable assets. All this wealth needs people: mansions, private jets, megayachts and extensive portfolios of residences require entire teams to operate. In certain epicenters of wealth, demand has skyrocketed to the point of absurdity. The New Yorker documents that in Palm Beach —recently converted into a laboratory of extreme capitalism— the salaries of nannies exceed 140,000 or 160,000 dollars annually, with partial housing included, bonuses and endless hours. The economy is literally being reconfigured around who can pay to delegate any task imaginable. Gen Z against corporatism. The other half of the equation is in the young people. According to the Deloitte reportonly 6% aspire to a managerial position. They seek balance, personal fulfillment and emotional stability. However, as shown a Bankrate surveytheir financial expectations have increased: many believe they need salaries close to six figures annually to feel “free” or “comfortable” financially. The reality of hiring, however, move in the opposite direction: difficulties in finding employment, entry-level salaries that do not cover rent, and companies where AI is already replacing human tasks. Buried in this contrast, many young people are choosing to work for the private service: money, stability, travel, benefits and — for some — the feeling of doing a job more human than any Excel. The price of luxury: what doesn’t appear on Instagram. Behind the extraordinary figures and photographs next to infinity pools, the reality is more complex. According to testimonies collected by Business Insider either The New Yorkerthese jobs are as lucrative as they are demanding. The working hours can exceed 70 or 80 hours per week, and during summers or international tours they are close to 100. “Absolute availability”—24 hours a day for consecutive weeks—is the true currency. And luxury does not lighten the burden: it intensifies it. In some cases, nannies fly first class, participate in exclusive dinner parties, or stay in five-star hotel suites. In others, as The Guardian explainsthey eat separately, they fly in economy class while the parents fly in business or they must follow strict protocols about how to enter a room, where to stand, what to say or what not to say. Added to this is the requirement for absolute discretion. The New Yorker documents confidentiality agreements, control of social networks, household manuals and rules on clothing, schedules or even the type of footwear allowed in certain rooms. The staff lives “on the edge of privacy and anonymity”: they know everything, but they can’t tell anything. And all of this results in a very high cost on an emotional level. Many nannies recognize that this type of employment makes it almost impossible to have children of their own, maintain a relationship or build a stable social circle. One of them sums it up like this, cited by the same medium: “It’s living other people’s lives, not yours.” Where is all this going? Palm Beach, London, New York, Los Angeles, Dubai, Monaco. The geographies repeat themselves: where wealth arrives, agencies, waiting lists and competition for the best personnel appear. In some places, the pressure is so intense that qualified staff are in short supply even amid hundreds of applications. Families want experience, discretion, professionalism and, increasingly, university education. Domestic service has stopped being a job: it has become a career. But with this professionalization the distance also grows. They are jobs that require being inside without ever being part of the inside. Closeness without belonging. Intimacy without reciprocity. A silent frontier that defines the era. Meanwhile, another half of the care sector remains trapped on barely living wages. The contrast is brutal: the same system that raises one nanny to $200,000 relegates another, outside the elite circuit, for the minimum wage. What this phenomenon reveals. In a world where young people board megayachts to find the stability that offices no longer offer, the rise of elite nannies and assistants is not a simple job change. It’s a symptom. It speaks of an economy that is organized around those who can pay for time, attention and affection. It speaks of a generation that, … Read more

neighborhoods and whole blocks that are not for families, are for workers

The idea that a company builds homes to attract or retain labor was promoted In the nineteenth centurywhen industrial paternalism promoted creation of whole neighborhoods Linked to factories, mines or siderurgies. All followed the same logic: guaranteeing accommodation, basic services and even a lifestyle for a captive template, often in areas where there was no previous infrastructure. What changes now is the context. It is no longer about so much business paternalism or “utopian” projects of social order. It is about responding to the real estate and demographic crisis. Retain labor. Yes, in Europe, the housing problem has become a direct obstacle to economic activity. In Brittany, the company Fenêtréa decided act After verifying that each available rent attracted hundreds of applications and that many candidates rejected positions due to lack of ceiling. Its director, Dominique Lamballe, launched the construction of the Horizon Brocelia Lot: 41 houses with garage, raised in Beignon, which can be bought or rented with priority for employees. The investment of more than seven million euros It seeks to guarantee the growth of a company that increases dozens of workers every year and prepares a new aluminum plant. In a rural region without adequate transport, the next accommodation becomes a survival condition for the company. The Spanish mirror: tourism. Spain offers even more visible examples, especially in tourist areas where the boom in the holiday rental has reduced the long -term to minimum offer. Meliá has been forced To buy a hostel In Menorca and to acquire land in Ibiza, Mallorca and the Canary Islands to create homes for their staff, after they stay employees in hotel rooms to avoid casualties. Spring Hotels has bought two unfinished buildings in Tenerife to transform them into 107 homes that It will lease staff and controls at subsidized prices, between 200 and 400 euros. Barceló and Gloria Thalasso They join To the search for solutions, aware that the lack of housing threatens the tourist model itself. The phenomenon reflects how, in the Balearic Islands or the Canary Islands, above all, hoteliers have gone from being pointed out as part of the problem to be forced to assume a role of residential promoters. Hotel zone in southern Gran Canaria The Irish case. In Ireland, the housing crisis has reached such magnitude that private companies have opted for Acquire block housing. Ryanair He bought 40 houses Next to the Dublin airport to allocate them to their crew, aware that without an insured roof there would be no way to recruit new staff. The measure raised criticism for absorbing part of the low new work, but its CEO defended That without her there would be no template. Other companies such as Musgrave, Supermacs or Killarney Hotels too They offer dozens of floors For subsidized rent. The unions denounce that salaries, well below the escalation of rentals, make it impossible to attract employees if accommodation is not included. The lack of public investment after 2008 left a void that now tries to cover private companies, often As a last resort. Central Europe and a road. The Czech Republic explores a different model, backed by the European Investment Bank and česká Spořitelna, which finances a 700 apartments project destined for public workers in the capital. With a budget of almost 190 million euros and energy efficiency criteria, seeks to guarantee affordable housing for teachers, nurses, police or officials who cannot assume market prices in a saturated city. The project, inspired by previous initiatives of Austria, is the first of this type in the country and intends to serve as a prototype For all central Europewhere the lack of housing threatens the provision of basic services. At the same time, it reinforces the idea that the problem has transcended the social and already impacts the functioning of the State itself. A shared symptom: living conditions work. Beyond specific cases, the phenomenon is already structural. In London, average rentals exceed 2,100 pounds And they have almost impossible for teachers, police and health personnel to live in the capital, which generates recruitment crisis in essential sectors. The disappearance of residential parks for officials He worsened the shortage. In Amsterdam and Dublin, young graduates jobs decline Checking that their salaries do not cover the rent. Even in medium cities like Rennes or Vigo, the rise of tourist rental Reduce the offer For residents and strength to companies to improvise solutions. Housing, traditionally seen as a social problem, has become a central variable for economic competitiveness. Riotinto Company workshop The precedents of the 19th century. We said it at the beginning, the decision that companies build houses for their employees inevitably remembers the workers’ colonies of The industrial revolution. In Catalonia, on the shores of Llobregat and the TER, they flourished Textile colonies that included homes, schools, chapels and economics under the control of the pattern. In Huelva, the Company River He lifted complete neighborhoods for his miners, such as Colonia Reina Victoria. Examples emerged in the United Kingdom As Port Sunlight from Lever Brothers or Bournville of the Cadbury, where the factory organized not only the work, but the social and cultural life of families. In France, The “Cité Ouvrière” De Mulhouse came to host thousands of workers. Those initiatives had a marked paternalistic dye: to ensure stable labor in isolated environments and, at the same time, discipline the working class under the umbrella of the company. Utopian and ordoliberal projects. In transit to the twentieth century projects with more ambitious aspirations appeared, since The garden cities from Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom to the workers promoted by large industries in Germany, influenced by Ordoliberalism. One was sought hygienic urbanismwith luminous housing, cultural and sports services, for altarii workers, chemical plants or car factories. Although presented as modernizers, they maintained the Structural dependence: The home was still linked to the company or the State. The difference with today is that New promotions They do not intend discipline to the population, but to respond to A real … Read more

In Spain there are millions of pets and families wishing to travel with them. There are those who have already seen a millionaire business

At this point of the year, last May Ecuador and with summer almost (almost) to stone shooting, it is likely that you have already thought about your next vacation. The usual thing: you decide where you will leave, how you will move, who will accompany you, how much you will spend and begin to take a look at the destination in case you need reservations inputs or excursions in advance. To those concerns more and more people Add another: what to do with your pets. And in a country where there is already Many more company animals That children is not a minor issue. In fact that question is the key to a booming business. On vacation with your pet? If you have a pet and you are looking for options not to leave it behind during your vacation, you are not alone. More and more people do it. A while ago the agencies investigated the issue and discovered that between 2019 and 2022 Google searches on accommodations that admit animals had shot 93%with 65,000 searches In the summer months. In fact more than half From those consultations they started from people who seemed more interested in finding hotels Pet Friendly At any point in Spain that in locating them in a concrete city or province, which suggests that pets are key when planning the getaways. That interest also corroborates the travel agencies o Booking, one of the great platforms in the sector: in approximately 2023 eight million of people used pet filters while searching accommodation on their website. Hotels with them or for them. To that growing interest in hotels Pet Friendly The one of the specific residences for animals is added, which according to the marketing agency generated 80,210 consultations on average in June 2022. And the trend does not seem to have declined. A quick search arrives on Google to find a Good handful of news that They speak of The high demand of the Canine Hotels, the diversification OF THE OFFER (WITH ACCOMMODATIONS “deluxe” for dogs) or how your activity He has shot with the Animal Welfare Law. New demand, new business. That interest has not only promoted New businesses focused on taking care of pets while their owners go on vacation. The hotels themselves have decided to adapt. There is estimates They talk about almost One third (30%) of Booking accommodations support pets. If you are looking for a room for two people between August 18 and 24 in Spain, without specifying destination, its search engine showed 70,700 options on Thursday. When using the pet filter stays in about 17,400more or less 25%. “They usually invest more”. A few weeks ago the Palladium Hotel Group gave a The country A key to understanding that interest: admitting pets can lead to certain changes in the operation of accommodation, but also has its reflection on the income sheet. “Travelers who choose accommodations Pet Friendly They usually invest more in their stay, whether in broader suites or additional services, which positively impacts average spending by host, ” Recognize. Other companies have launched to organize trips and activities Designed so that the client can enjoy them in the company of their pet or have even gone further with bets more risky. Cruise Tails and Expedia Cruises of West Orland have organized A cruise that allows you to cross the sea In your dog’s companywith petroat service, hairdressing and veterinary on board. Maybe it sounds strange, but a considerable percentage His pets already accompanied by people. And that despite the fact that airlines and companies in charge of operating railway and bus services do not always make it easy to travel with animals. Even the Imserso It has adapted To the trend. More pets than children. That there are more and more demand and businesses focused on pets is better understood if a key fact is handled: in Spain there are more (Many more) Company animals that children. In September The world He pulled calculator And it came out that there are almost six furry companions for each child under four years. While the latter have fallen during the last decade to represent 3.7% of the population, pets touch the 10.5 million. After contacting all the veterinary schools of Spain, The country contributed Another estimate A few months ago: at the beginning of 2025 in the country there were around 1.6 million cats and 9.3 million dogs. In total: 10.9 million censored pets, without counting reptiles, birds, fish and other species. From the Reiac they point out that the figure “is not real at all” (there are animals without chip and owners who do not discharge them when they die), but it is the one that approaches reality. In any case, it clearly exceeds the number of children in Spain. In 2022 the INE counted 1.8 million about 6.5 million With less than 15 years. A Milmillonario business. Their data is not the only ones that reflect the growing weight of pets in Spanish society. It is calculated that in 80% of the municipalities From Malaga there are already double pets than children and the first They already double to the latter. At an economic level that translates into a lucrative business of thousands of millions of euros. Estimates do not always coincide, but give an idea of ​​their reach and how it has evolved. In 2017 it was estimated that in the EU the pet business invoiced 36.5 billion euroswith the Spanish market occupying the fifth position. Since then, despite the fact that the sector has given some moderation samples, the figure would have increased considerably. ANFAAC talks about almost 2,000 million In 2023 and there are estimates that raise clear that sum. Images | Yux Xiang (UNSPLASH) and Andrey Kremkov (UNSPLASH) In Xataka | The domestication of cats remains a mystery. But we are closer to knowing where and why it happened

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