(Bloomberg) -- The benefits arms race is showing no signsof slowing down: Twee online marketplace Etsy andfinancial-services giant Fidelity both announced expandedpaid family leave policies onTuesday.

Fidelity doubled its previous family leave offering, upping itspaid maternity leave to 16 weeks and parental leave to 6 weeks, thecompany said in a statement.

Etsy went with an all-encompassing parental leave policy,according to a post on its corporate blog. All of its 819 employeesare eligible for a full 26 weeks of paid leave when they become aparent, regardless of gender or family circumstance.

That also includes adoptive parents, making it one of the moregenerous leave policies out there. "We had sense of our talentcompetitors and where they're at," said Juliet Gorman, Etsy'sdirector of culture and engagement. "This certainly puts inthe position of being a leader."

Both companies have enhanced their benefits in an attempt toattract and retain employees. "Agenerous, fully-paid parental leave policy is a competitivenecessity for a company like Etsy," wrote Gorman inthe announcement on the company blog.

Fidelity called paid leave a "compelling benefit to attract andretain employees." The company has also startedoffering student debt repayment, anotherhot, recruitment-friendly benefit.

Read: Amazon expands parental leavebenefits

Fidelity will put $2,000 a year toward student loanrepayments for employees who have worked at the company for atleast six months, up to a total of $10,000. Fidelity estimatesthat about a quarter of its 42,000 employees have student loandebt.

"For us it's very important that we demonstrate that we're adestination for that talent," said Fidelity's head of benefits,Jennifer Hanson.

At big companies trying to hire highly skilled workers, benefitspackages keep getting nicer.

In 2015 the percentage of large companies paying for parentalleave hit an all-time high.

Each month, more companies announce the student debtbenefit. As the recruitment wars heat up, the number ofcompanies offering parental leave and student debt repayment isexpected to climb.

Yet most American workers don't have access to the sameluxuries.

Only 12 percent of U.S. workers are covered by formal leavepolicies, and under half of companies offer paid maternity leave.While about 70 percent of today's college graduates come outof school with an average of $35,051 in debt, only 3 percentof companies offer a student debt benefit as of2015.

Potential legislation could cover moreworkers. Washington, D.C., Connecticut, and NewYork might join California, New Jersey, and RhodeIsland by adding paid family leave policies to the books.

Also, both of the Democratic presidential candidates, BernieSanders and Hillary Clinton, are running on paid family leave.

As for student debt, both the House and Senate are consideringbills that would treat student debt repayment as nontaxable income,making it a more attractive offering for employers.

"We've been cautiously optimistic," said Kathleen Coulombe, agovernment affairs adviser at the Society for Human ResourceManagement, of the bill. "I think that we're starting to seethat employers really need these resources to attract talent."

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