With the policy change, announced to employees on Monday, Amazon joins a host of companies in technology and other industries that have recently expanded family-leave policies.
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New parents who work at Amazon can look forward to improved benefits beginning next year, including 20 weeks fully paid leave for new moms. Under the Seattle-based company’s new policy, birth mothers can take 20 weeks of paid parental leave.
“One thing we hear from new mothers at Amazon is that they wish their spouse or partner could also take paid time off from work”, the memo says.
Vodafone said it would allow new mothers to return to work on a part-time basis for six weeks-while still receiving their full salary. Those six weeks would apply both to birth and adoptive parents.
Now, the policy will be providing up to 4 weeks of paid pre-partum medical leave, and an extra 10 weeks of paid maternity leave.
Moreover, white-collar workers who had been faced with personal crises such as cancer or miscarriages have claimed that being employed by Amazon proved to be a soul-crushing experience. It’s worth noting that in the employees who have been at Amazon for over a year are not entitled to sharing the entirety of their 6 months paid leave with spouses.
Sam Kennedy, a spokesman for Amazon, declined to comment on the new parental leave policy.
The new policy by Amazon has come after the company faced a lot of criticism for its workplace environment. The new rules, which will roll out next year, follow a New York Times investigation into the company’s work culture, in which “Motherhood [could] also be a liability”. The program spans eight weeks after the birth moms or primary caregivers return to work. It’s to a point where a massive company deciding to offer paid leave actually will earn them a few good press in response.
On Tuesday, the e-retail behemoth became the latest tech company to extend generous parental benefits for employees. The U.S.is the only nation in the developed world that doesn’t mandate maternity leave with pay. You use that money so your partner can take time off with the baby.
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Representatives of the online retailer have even been quick to outline the fact that over 80% of the businesses in the United States offer no such favors to their employees. But for now, it looks like private companies, particularly in the competitive tech landscape, are a new parent’s best chance to find paid time off.
