Jump around
Tenures of ten years or longer are down across the board in the US and, with younger generations reportedly more restless than predecessors, it seems that being in it for the long run may not mean quite what it used to.
Attitudes towards the concept of the ‘career’ have shifted. Workers no longer seem bound to live out their working lives at one company for large chunks of time, particularly in the post-pandemic workforce. Indeed, less than a third of workers over 25 in the US have been at the same company for over ten years, with just 31% of employees reaching the decade stage with their current employer.
The data becomes particularly interesting when split out by gender. In the 80s, with fewer women in the workforce, the gap between the number of men and women reaching the 10-year milestone was wide (38% for men, 25% for women in 1983). However, as more women joined the workforce and climbed the corporate ladder, that gap has narrowed — although never completely disappeared.
Shortening stints
Unsurprisingly, the median tenure length for workers is also down across the board too — the typical worker now spends just over 4 years at each company, on average. Given how many Americans have quit, or made plans to quit, in the last year, that figure — and the number reaching the 10-year milestone — is likely to fall even further.