family

Last month, Johnson and Johnson announced its new parental leave policy that hopefully will be followed by all the other big companies in the United States.  All J&J employees, who are new parents, will now have the opportunity to take eight additional weeks of paid leave during the first year of the family’s birth or adoption.

Under the old policy, which is the policy of most major companies, the non-birthing parent (fathers, adoptive parents, same sex couples who don’t give birth) could only take one week of paid leave to take care of the new born and the mother who gives birth. Moms who give birth could only take seven weeks (nine weeks if they had a C-section).

With the new policy parents who don’t give birth can take nine weeks of paid leave, and moms who give birth can take up to 17 weeks off… with pay!!!

And J&J’s employees don’t have to take the paid leave consecutively, providing even greater flexibility during that critical first year of a child’s life.