Two American companies have recently decided to cut back on certain social benefits provided to their employees in the United States, including parental leave. This decision affects the giant consulting and auditing firm Deloitte and the video conferencing company Zoom, which saw a surge in demand during the Covid pandemic. At Zoom, which employs over 7,400 people, paid maternity leave has been reduced from 24 to 18 weeks for new mothers, and from 16 to 10 weeks for fathers. As for Deloitte, parental leave, equal for both parents, will decrease from 16 to 8 weeks starting in January 2027.
However, this reform will not apply to all of Deloitte’s 150,000 employees in the United States, but only to those working in administrative, information technology, and financial services. The famous firm is not stopping there. In addition to reducing the duration of parental leave, they are also cutting 10 days off the number of paid sick leave for female employees, as well as canceling the $50,000 reimbursement for adoption, in vitro fertilization, and surrogacy costs – which is legal in some American states.
While the reasons behind these decisions have not been publicly disclosed yet by the two companies, they have faced criticism, even from entrepreneurs. Sara Mauskopf, the founder of the childcare services platform Winnie in San Francisco, expressed her concern by saying, “We made so much progress to make work more accommodating for parents, yet these past two years, it feels like everything is being questioned.” She emphasized the importance of parental leave in professional choices and the companies we choose to support.
In the United States, there is no mandatory federal paid parental leave system. While the Family and Medical Leave Act protects job security, it does not provide any compensation and only applies to companies with at least 50 employees. Therefore, American new parents depend on their company’s policies regarding parental leave. Despite the cutbacks by Deloitte and Zoom, The Guardian notes that their parental leave policies still remain more generous than many other companies in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Labor in March 2023, only 27% of employees were benefiting from paid family leave provided by their employer.
The recent adjustments made by Deloitte and Zoom are part of a larger trend observed among several major American companies that are reducing certain benefits for their employees. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, for instance, reduced stock grants by 5% in February 2026, and more companies are revising their remote work policies. This shift occurs against a backdrop of a sluggish American labor market and disruptions caused by the integration of artificial intelligence in businesses.
