Pets are part of the caregiving process and employers are taking notice.
As companies expand benefits to cover a wide variety of employee caregiving needs, back-up care for pets is becoming a more popular work perk along with back-up care for children and aging parents.
Back-up care is short-term, often employer-subsidized support that is used when regular arrangements fall through. It’s highly in need across the U.S., especially as more companies are mandating workers fully back to offices. A new report from the AARP Public Policy Institute finds that roughly 59 million Americans provided care for family, neighbors or friends in 2024, adding up to 49.5 billion hours of care and an estimated $1 trillion worth of work.
At the same time, a growing body of data shows why pet care also matters to the workplace. A survey of more than 1,000 full-time employees who own pets found that 75% have missed at least a day of work in the past year due to pet-care issues, according to pet health-care company Wagmo, with 26% saying they missed six days or more.
Caregiving company Wellthy, which offers back-up care across millions of employees and families nationally, and for clients including Best Buy, Merck and Harvard University, first added pets in 2024.
