Amazon announced last week that it’s testing out a 30-hour workweek for some of its employees mostly the technical team.

The 30 hour workweek employees will keep the same benefits as full-time staff but earn 75% of the pay (Amazon already employs part-time workers with full benefits). The workweek would be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday with of course the option of adding hours to the full time status.

According to the Post (which is owned by Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos), Amazon sees the move as a response to rising demand for more flexible hours.

A recent article published in New York Times slammed Amazon’s culture as a sort of office-bound Hunger Games which led Amazon few months later to unveil a more generous parental leave policy, joining companies in the lead of this policy like Netflix, Adobe, and others that have recently done the same.

Seattle has become a lot like Silicon Valley where it's challenging to hire the best talent because there are so many companies fighting for the same talented employees.especially as companies like  Facebook and others opening up big offices that compete there for talent against Microsoft, Amazon, and other Seattle incumbents.

This is a big announcement that will lead any more companies to start abandoning the old rigid workweek ideas. The job market has changed a lot in the past 20 years and employment practices did not follow. Few leading tech companies that are already known for innovation are leading these changes and we hope more will follow their lead soon.