New Parents: Feeling the Whiplash of Mass Layoffs

Recent months have been trying for many tech industry employees, especially those who are new parents. For Alex Gable, a newly minted father, recent weeks had been a bleary-eyed haze of caring for his wife and newborn son, with a mere 4 hours of precious awake time to devote to tummy time and snowflake drawings.
 

It was in this environment that early one morning on January 18th he received an all-hands notification from Coda, the software company where he worked as a data scientist. Four hours later it became clear why: Mr. Gable had just been laid off while on paternity leave - months after choosing Coda for its generous parental leave policy and openness toward work-life balance.
 
The layoff was particularly painful considering the commitment by so many tech companies in recent years to expand paid parental leave offerings in order to make the workplace more family-friendly. But with mass layoffs continuing across the industry due to economic hardships brought about by COVID-19, those recently availed benefits may now be out of reach for many workers like Mr. Gable.
 
Parental leave policies are often sold as core organizational values that seek to better facilitate a healthy work-life balance among employees; however, they can also act as some small measure of security in times of economic distress. With much of the future still uncertain due to COVID-19, it is now more important than ever for successful companies to continue investing in creating family-friendly workplaces which afford their workers' sufficient support during times of upheaval.
 
The Weight of Mass Layoffs on Working Parents
 
For Alex Gable, the weight of mass layoffs in the tech industry was deeply personal - he had just chosen Coda for their generous paternity leave policy and openness to work-life balance, only to be laid off while on paternity leave months later.
 
The pain is felt deeply by many workers across the industry as companies who have spent recent years expanding benefits such as paid parental leave and caregiver benefits turn to mass job cuts. Alphabet and Microsoft have both cut nearly 6 percent and 5 percent of their workforce respectively due to economic hardships brought on by COVID-19.
 
It's a whiplash that new parents like Gable particularly feel - "It's like an earthquake," he said. “It’s the weight of ‘What am I going to bring him up with? How is his first year going to go? How are you going to make ends meet?”
 
The United States is a glaring outlier amongst developed countries in its failure to provide basic federal mandates for paid parental leave, making corporate benefits packages all the more important when it comes to supporting working families. But with entire industries now reeling from economic collapse, these well-intended policies may not provide enough security in times like these.
 
While it remains important for successful companies to continue investing in creating family-friendly workplaces which afford workers sufficient support during times of tumult, what will no doubt provide even greater stability throughout this period is much-needed reform at the federal level that provides reliable support for employees regardless of the health of their employer's bottom line.

Corporate Benefits for Working Parents: A Bait and Switch During the Pandemic?
 
In recent years, many tech companies have engaged in a so-called “golden age” of corporate benefits - offering attractive packages that include child care support, mental health services and plentiful paid time off. But as the pandemic rolls on, many of these employees are feeling like it was all a bait and switch - with their parental leave offers suddenly becoming non-existent in times of mass layoffs.
 
Being on parental leave does not protect someone from layoffs unrelated to their leave - due to there being no federal paid-family-leave policy enacted in America. According to September 2022 data from the career site Zippia, only about 23 percent of private employees had access to paid maternity leaves. And while 90 percent of women took full advantage of such programs, only two-thirds of men opted in according to a survey conducted by the Boston College Center for Work and Family.
 
While there had been some progress made in covering fertility treatments such as In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and egg freezing for working parents in the last five years (54% and 19% respectively compared with 36% and 6% in 2015), these policies may fail to provide adequate protection during nationwide economic hardships brought about by COVID-19. While employers should continue investing in creating family-friendly workplaces that afford workers sufficient support during times of tumult, what is ultimately needed is federal reform that guarantees reliable support regardless of their employers' bottom line.
 
Reimagining Parental Leave: A Cultural Shift in Male-Dominated Workplaces
 
In recent years, many tech companies have engaged in a sea change of corporate benefits - promoting family-friendly policies to attract new women workers and inspire a cultural shift that allows male workers to play an active role in child care.
 
“There’s a sizable portion of young men who would be bent out of shape if they couldn’t take family leave,” said Joan Williams, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. “Tech companies realized they could try to steal talent by having the best set of family leave policies around.”
 
It's worked - with the uptake of paternity leave amongst men increasing drastically. In 2011, fewer than 5 percent of new fathers took more than two weeks off - yet today, 90 percent opt for more than seven weeks if offered eight weeks according to the Boston College Center for Work and Family. This shift has been reflected in more managers proactively inquiring about how their employees plan on utilizing their paternity leave time instead of assuming fathers will only take off a few days.
 
The expansion of family-friendly benefits is ultimately intended to make workplaces welcoming for all genders but also demonstrates growing awareness about the importance of balance between home and work life across not just women but men too. To help further this cause, technology companies should continue striving towards providing competitive leave packages while simultaneously pushing for federal reform that guarantees reliable support regardless of economic turmoil or employer stability.