Netflix to give employees with babies a year of paid leave

LOS GATOS, Calif. -- Netflix is letting new parents on its payroll to take up to a year's paid leave in a move that could pressure other technology employers to improve their baby benefits as they vie for talent.

The employee benefit announced Tuesday on Netflix's blog is generous even by the high standards of Silicon Valley, where free meals and other perquisites supplement lavish salaries in the fiercely competitive battle for computer programmers and other technology workers.

Google, which consistently ranks among the best places to work, offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave. Parents can also take up to 12 weeks of paid "baby bonding" time during their child's first year.

Netflix says the baby-leave policy applies to all of the roughly 2,000 people working at its Internet video and DVD-by-mail services.