Amazon will join other tech giants by offering a backup childcare benefit to employees, but only temporarily.
The Seattle-based company announced Tuesday that it will offer 650,000 full and part-time permanent U.S.-based employees at Amazon and Whole Foods up to 10 days of childcare in partnership with Care.com. The benefit lasts until Oct. 2 and can also be used for adult care.
Employees will still need to pay a $25 per day co-pay for in-center childcare or $5 per hour for in-home care. Amazon said it will cover more than 90% of the cost and invest “several million dollars” to offer the benefit.
“We’ve heard from our employees that access to affordable family care, for both children and adults, is particularly challenging during the COVID crisis and we are committed to support them in this unprecedented time,” Beth Galetti, Amazon senior vice president of Human Resources, said in a blog post.
As GeekWire reported last week, working parents are struggling to keep up as they try to work from home while taking care of their kids with schools closed, summer camps canceled, and few childcare options available.
Historically Amazon has not provided backup childcare to employees, unlike other tech stalwarts such as Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet. The company is different than its tech rivals given that it has thousands of warehouse workers on the ground, in addition to its office-based employees. Retail competitors such as Target offer childcare benefits.
Last year Bloomberg reported about a group called “Momazonians” — working mothers at Amazon — who wanted access to childcare benefits. Part of their argument is that withholding backup daycare stunts career growth for female workers at Amazon.
Many daycare facilities closed temporarily due to the pandemic. Even as they start to reopen under strict safety guidelines issued by each state, some parents are worried about sending their children back and potentially getting sick.
Depending on the supply of providers and whether schools remain closed this fall, the crisis could force parents to quit their jobs so they can take care of their kids, a burden that some say will fall unfairly on working women.
It’s also creating a disparity between colleagues at work, as those without children are able to put in longer uninterrupted hours during shelter-in-place orders, while parents are facing constant distractions at home.
Microsoft added to its childcare benefits package for parents in response to COVID-19, Business Insider reported last month.
“We added an additional leave option to give our employees greater flexibility and time off as they face extended school closures: the 12-week Paid Pandemic School and Childcare Closure Leave,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. “This benefit may be taken on a continuous, reduced, or intermittent basis — for example, it could be used to take leave for 1-2 days per week while remotely working the rest.”
Amazon has grown to more than 935,000 employees worldwide. Amazon is planning to offer permanent roles to 70% of the 175,000 temporary workers the company brought on to deal with surging demand driven by the coronavirus pandemic.
Amazon said it will spend around $4 billion from April to June on COVID-related initiatives.
“Providing for customers and protecting employees as this crisis continues for more months is going to take skill, humility, invention, and money. If you’re a shareowner in Amazon, you may want to take a seat, because we’re not thinking small,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a lengthy statement as part of the company’s quarterly earnings report.
