In recent years many people have casually dropped into conversation (recruitment related conversion obviously) that job-hopping is on the increase. They say that these days it’s totally normally to move job every two years and no one has a “job for life” like the “old days”. In fact about two years ago I wrote a strangely titled blog perpetrating this “fact”: Job Hoppers – Crap or Cool?
However, recently during a perfect example of these types of conversations I saw this article quoted by David D’Souza of the CIPD: True Or False? ‘Employees Today Only Stay One Or Two Years’
The article, from Forbes, states that according to research from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, employees today stay longer with a company than they did 25 years ago. In 1983, the average employee tenure was around 3.5 years. Fifteen years later, in 1998, people stayed on the job an average of 3.6 years before leaving. In 2014, the average employee stayed 4.6 years. This rise, by the way, includes passing through four recessions from 1983 – 2014.
Yes, it’s US data – but the UK chart they show suggests similar findings. The only other downside to the report is that it’s from Jan 2016!
So, two years ago the commonly known fact about job hoppers was totally wrong – has anything changed in these last two years….? Would love some up to date UK based data if anyone has it.
