Starting this fall, Target workers will receive 20 days of backup child care or elder care.
Target's parental leave policy is changing, too — instead of two weeks of paid leave, employees will get up to four weeks annually to take care of a newborn or sick family member. The better benefits are in response to wanting to attract strong workers, and keep them on staff.
Best Buy offers a similar backup child care plan through partner network Care.com. And Walmart is expanding education benefits to attract high school student employees.
"The job market is definitely an employee friendly market," said Molly Vigil of The Employment Firm.
Job seekers can thank the 3.6 percent unemployment rate. It the lowest in 50 years and it is playing a part in better job opportunities.
Employers are doing more to attract quality workers: best Buy added a similar backup child care plan last year, and several companies have increased their minimum wages.
"Everybody's having to do something, everyone's having to kind of add value to what they offer employees in order to attract some of the top talent and people that will stay with the company long term," Vigil said.
She says keeping long-term folks is key one because training new employees is costly. It also makes a company more successful in the long run.
"It just adds a lot of value to the company when you've got a staff that really knows a lot about the company, knows what they're doing and can add value to what they're doing every single day," she said.
