Thursday, January 27, 2011

Support for Paid Parental Leave set to continue

This week the HR Daily reported that the introduction of the Federal Government's Paid Parental Leave scheme which commences this month is prompting more organisations to look at introducing paid parental leave for employees in addition to the government entitlements, according to a new survey from Mercer.

Under the government scheme, primary carers for newborn or adopted children will be eligible for up to 18 weeks of paid leave at the national minimum wage of $570 a week, funded by the Federal Government.

Mercer's Paid Parental Leave Survey of 284 organisations found that 72% of organisations surveyed already offer a paid parental leave entitlement for the primary carer, with the median entitlement being 12 weeks at full pay.

Mercer's survey also found that some industries are using more generous schemes to create a total reward package that employees can value. The industry with the highest number of weeks of paid parental leave is education and research, offering 23 weeks at the median. This is nine weeks more than the next highest industries which include energy and utilities, healthcare and federal, state and local government. Read more.

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