MANILA, Philippines – Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said Tuesday, May 12 (May 13, Manila time), the company was improving wages and benefits for contractors and vendors in the United States with whom it does a substantial amount of work.

Sandberg said the benefits included a $15 minimum wage, a minimum of 15 paid days off for holidays, sick time and vacation, and a $4,000 new child benefit for new parents who don’t receive paid parental leave.

The move, Sandberg said, “will give both women and men the flexibility to take paid parental leave, an important step for stronger families and healthier children.”

According to California’s Department of Industrial Relations, the minimum wage is currently set to $9 an hour, and is expected to increase to $15 an hour on January 1, 2016.

The change went into effect on May 1, and has been implemented in some of the company’s largest support teams at its headquarters in Menlo Park.

Facebook will add a broader set of vendors to the benefits program within the year, with this change including workers who do substantial work for Facebook and who are employed by companies based in the US with more than 25 employees supporting Facebook. – Rappler.com