Is an employer required to provide maternity, parental, or other leaves of absence?

Sometimes if an employer has more than 50 employees in their workplace, they are governed by the Family Medical Leave Act. That requires an employer to give a person who’s given birth or, in many cases, the father of the child up to 12 weeks of unpaid time to care for that child. New York has a leave act that also requires an employer to give time off under certain circumstances, and New Jersey does as well. So, it depends on the size of the company and then what state you’re in, because there are different laws that govern New York and New Jersey under that. For small companies, there’s generally no requirement to provide maternity leave, but many do now.