This is something I wonder about. I have found that, for whatever reason, social norms maybe, managers tend to view working part-time as somehow "cheating", even if they are paying less. So, when you clock out early, before everyone else, there is pressure to stick around and not "abandon" the rest of the team. I could see this being a major problem for a lot of people and a disincentive to accept a part-time offer like the one mentioned above.

Also, I wonder how many of those employees were afraid they would appear "lazy" and be evaluated poorly if they accepted the offer.

My engineer wants to take a month off, but she is doing it as a unpaid leave. She had already saved her living expenses for the time she would be off, so it didn't matter to her.

B: What is your unpaid time off policy? Could your employees take 4 weeks off and receive their regular 2 weeks vacation pay? (Specifically, can they do this upon request. I understand that your engineer is doing this, but I don't know if that's available to everyone as a rule.)

If I was given the option of making 100% pay with a relaxed unpaid time off policy, or making 80% pay with a 20% PTO policy, I would choose the former option. That way I can decide exactly how much vacation/unpaid time as I want.

Given the norms in the USA I, as an employee, would never initiate such an arrangement. I feel like it would result in at the very least an indelible assumption of laziness by my new employers, if not a retraction of the original job offer.