Parental leave is left at the office

Remember the mad rush to offer employees weeks and weeks of paid leave for all new parents?

Turns out that trend was limited to a certain sector of the American economy. Over the last decade many companies instead have re

duced their leave offerings. In recent years, as the labor market has tightened, Google, Netflix, American Express and other elite firms have announced expanded-leave policies, giving more time off to more workers than ever, in a sort of parental-leave arms race.

When Google increased its maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18 weeks in 2007, the rate at which new moms left the company fell by 50 percent. Since then, other companies struggling to hire and retain talent have realized that generous, broadly inclusive parental leave policies save money on turnover costs. It’s not such bad publicity, either.

Yet many businesses have backed away from fully paid policies, an already rare benefit for the average American worker, according to a new national survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Of 920 US employers with 50 or more employees that offer paid leave, the percentage offering full pay to new parents dropped from 17 to 10 percent between 2005 and 2016, the survey found.

Among the firms that do offer leave, the average maximum time off given to new parents dropped from 15.2 weeks to 14.5 weeks.

The new data challenges the perceived rise of flashy, wraparound parental leave policies that offer 16, 20 or even 52 weeks to all new parents at full pay. Most companies are not, in fact, expanding their maternity, paternity, or parental leave offerings.

Like many workplace benefits, paid parental leave is a story of the haves and the have-nots.

While the number of companies offering some benefits for new parents has risen from 46 percent to 58 percent in the past decade, the coverage hasn’t come in the form of expanded leave policies, SHRM found.

Most companies are offering temporary disability insurance, a free perk for employees. Of employers providing at least some paid maternity leave, 78 percent fund it through a temporary disability insurance plan, the survey found.