Facebook and Apple will pay for employees to have eggs frozen

Starting in January, Apple will pay for female employees to freeze their eggs in order to allow them to have children at a later stage.

Though the process will cost up to $20,000 for the company, they spoke of the importance of such a project: “We continue to expand our benefits for women, with a new extended maternity leave policy, along with cryopreservation and egg storage as part of our extensive support for infertility treatments … We also offer an Adoption Assistance program, where Apple reimburse expenses associated with the legal adoption of a child. We want to empower women at Apple to for the best work of their lives as they care for loved ones and raise their families" a spokesperson for Apple said. 

Typically, freezing eggs can be a very expensive endeavour, often costing up to $12,000 with an extra $1,000 per year of storage. Drug fees and the recommended amount of eggs to be frozen can often run this figure even higher making this no small move by either company. 

It has also been reported that Facebook have been offering the service to their female employees since last January. 

It is thought these moves by the Silicon Valley giants will increase the number of women in CEO positions and make the talent pool that bit more competitive.