Microsoft Will Start Giving US Workers 'Unlimited Time Off'. This Is What It Means

Microsoft will give its staff in the US "unlimited time off", no longer requiring them to formally record vacation.

Even new Microsoft employees don't need to wait to accrue vacation time anymore. ( Image: Getty )

Microsoft will give its staff in the US "unlimited time off", no longer requiring them to formally record vacation. According to The Verge, the new 'Discretionary Time Off' policy will apply to all employees on the pay role.

"How, when, and where we do our jobs has dramatically changed. And as we've transformed, modernizing our vacation policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step," according to an internal email to employees. However, hourly workers at the tech giant will not get unlimited time off, nor will employees outside the US.

The changes in vacation policy will begin on January 16. Even new Microsoft employees don't need to wait to accrue vacation time anymore, according to the report.

"Microsoft will offer 10 corporate holidays, leaves of absence, sick and mental health time off, and time away for jury duty or bereavement alongside this new unlimited time off policy," it added. Those with unused vacation balance will get a one-time payout in April.

The workers outside the US will keep their current vacation benefits because of different laws and regulations in their countries. Some other companies like Salesforce, Oracle and Netflix also offer the same unlimited time off policies for employees.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is planning to infuse $10 billion into OpenAI, the owner of popular AI platform called ChatGPT, which will value OpenAI at nearly $29 billion.

Opened last month for the general public, ChatGPT has invited users to get feedback and learn about its strengths and weaknesses. AI-driven ChatGPT gives human-like answers to questions and has become very popular on social media, with people asking it to write poems to essays. Microsoft is now pushing ChatGPT applications for solving real-life problems.

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)