The number of years an employee stays with a company continues to decline according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in their biennial report on employee tenure released Sept. 22.
The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.2 years in January 2016, down from 4.6 years in January 2014.
The report also included some other interesting data points:
- Men declined to 4.3 years from 4.7 years; women 4.0 years compared with 4.5 years in 2014.
- Among men, 29 percent of wage and salary workers had 10 years or more of tenure with their
current employer in January 2016, slightly higher than the figure of 28 percent for women. - Older workers have longer tenure than younger workers (55 to 64 was 10.1 years; 25 to 34 was 2.8 years)
- 55 percent aged 60-64 have been employed at least ten years compared with only 13 percent aged 30-34
- 74 percent of 16-19 year olds had a tenure of less than a year compared to ten percent of those aged 55-64
- When accounting for race and ethnicity, 22 percent of Hispanics, 30 percent of Whites, and 25 percent of both Blacks and Asians maintained tenure for more than a decade
- Education still matters, but perhaps as not as much as expected. For men, the tenure with without a high school diploma is 4.8 years and with a college degree is 5.2 years; for women, it is 4.4 years and 5.1 years.
- Public sector employees more than double the tenure of private sector employees 7.7 years to 3.7 years.
- Manufacturing has a 5.3 year tenure and leisure/hospitality a tenure of 2.2 years
Read the full report.