Apple and Facebook to fund egg-freezing for female staff

Firms aim to retain female talent by allowing them to delay having children

Apple and Facebook are offering to fund a range of fertility treatments for their staff – including offering to pay for women to freeze their eggs – in what appears to be a bid to retain top female talent for longer.

According to reports, Facebook has already begun offering female staff up to $20,000 (£12,567) to fund the oocyte-cryopreservation process, which is more commonly known as egg freezing.

The social media giant is also reported to offer all its staff help with adoption costs and a "host of other fertility services".

An Apple spokesperson told NBC News that the company will begin covering the costs for egg freezing from January.

Neither firm has explicitly said the move to fund fertility treatment is aimed at retaining women in their workforces, but Apple CEO Tim Cook recently admitted he was "not happy" with his firm's diversity report, which showed its male-female ratio was 70:30.