Amazon.com Inc will give new fathers paid parental leave and extend paid maternity leave for mothers, as the online retailer seeks to enhance its benefits as a way to attract and retain talent.
Women who have a child can now take up to 20 weeks of paid leave, up from eight weeks. New parents can take six weeks of paid parental leave.
The Seattle-based company previously did not offer paternity leave. The new benefits apply to all births or adoptions on or after Sunday, according to a memo distributed to employees on Monday.
Amazon declined to comment on the new parental leave policy.
Amazon’s changes come three months after video-streaming service Netflix Inc in August offered up to one year of paid leave to new parents in the first 12 months after a child’s birth or adoption.
At Facebook Inc, mothers and fathers get four months paid leave plus US$4,000 in “baby cash,” while at Google Inc employees are entitled to 18 weeks of parental leave. Microsoft Corp in August said it would offer 12 weeks of paid leave for all new parents.
Technology companies offer generous benefits compared with other industries because of competition for top talent.
Issues of gender equality and family balance have also become hot topics in the industry. Only 12 percent of US private-sector employees have access to any paid family leave through their jobs, according to the US Department of Labor.
The US is the only nation in the developed world that does not mandate maternity leave with pay.
Amazon’s expanded parental benefits also follow increased scrutiny over the company’s treatment of workers after a scathing New York Times report in August portrayed the online retailer as a pressure cooker where worker hardships are ignored and backstabbing is encouraged.
Amazon founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos rejected the article and Jay Carney, Amazon’s senior vice president for global corporate affairs, responded last month with a blog post that refuted some of the newspaper’s claims.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS