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Comment by option_greek | Hacker News Reader

Am I reading this correct ? 12 weeks of paid paternity leave. My jaw is still hanging :) (Maternity leave is awesome too but its already more than 22 weeks in the country I live).

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Google has had 12 weeks for a while. I think Facebook is even more (3 or 4 months).

12 weeks is 3 months :)

I believe FB is 16 weeks?

3 months is actually 13 weeks, which is why I referred to it as more.

As a grateful recipient of 12 weeks of parental leave, I hope this is a sign of a wider competitive benefits escalation. It seems likely that increased benefits will be confined to highly in-demand industries though. But who knows, maybe American workers outside of tech will one day get a paid vacation!

I got 6 weeks paternity leave. I wasn't allowed to take it all at once but hey, it's something. We also extend benefits to adopting families like nvidia is doing.

Hm, I was lucky to have 2 days. The video game industry is great.

This right here ladies and gentlemen is why you see so many people leave games. Work-life balance is almost non-existent in that industry.

Weeeellllll, 2 days is still better than what a lot of folks in the US get. Which is to say, they don't even qualify for 12 weeks unpaid leave from FMLA as their employer is not big enough or they have not worked enough hours for their employer (part time and scheduling shenanigans), so they get no time off - not even unpaid - and no job security to speak of.

There's a pitiful 3-4 states (including California) that offer partial paid leave. That's it. CA's is only ~50% taxable income for six weeks and no job protection if you are not covered by CFRA/FMLA. If you're a mother recovering from a C-section or if you're taking care of a seriously ill spouse, good luck!

We have 6 months of paid parental leave in my tiny / unusual / wonderful corner of the video games industry.

Might I ask what company? Or at least which country? It sounds very nice :)

I had 2 months at part time (30h/w), also in the games industry.

It can be a lot better, even in the US. Electronic Arts recently updated its parental leave policy, offering ten weeks parental leave: http://www.ea.com/news/updating-our-parental-leave

FWIW, this is the government mandated standard paternity leave for everyone in Norway. The mother also has to take the same in maternity leave, and then there's 26 weeks that can be shared between both parents, but in 99% of the cases the mother gets this.

(To be perfectly correct, the parental leave length has been fluctuating between 10, 12 and 14 weeks during the last decade, in what amounts to a major bikeshedding competition by the political parties).

I got 3 days from my previous company.

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