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28 percent of workers age 55 and over have been with their current employer 20 years or more

September 27, 2016

Generally, older workers have longer tenure with their current employer than younger workers. In January 2016, 28 percent of workers age 55 and over had 20 or more years of tenure with their current employers. Younger workers were more likely than older workers to be short-tenured employees. Among workers 16 to 19 years-old, 74 percent had tenure of 12 months or less with their current employer, compared with 10 percent of workers ages 55 to 64.

Percent distribution of wage and salary workers by length of tenure with current employer and age of worker, January 2016
         Tenure          Age of Worker
16 to 19 years 20 to 24 years 25 to 34 years 35 to 44 years 45 to 54 years 55 to 64 years 65 years and over

12 months or less

73.7% 50.8% 28.9% 17.1% 12.4% 10.2% 9.9%

13 to 23 months

11.7 14.2 9.4 6.1 5.0 3.5 2.9

2 years

7.5 10.8 7.8 4.8 3.4 2.9 2.3

3 to 4 years

7.0 19.1 24.9 18.4 13.7 11.7 9.8

5 to 9 years

0.1 5.0 21.7 24.4 20.6 18.1 19.9

10 to 14 years

0.1 6.7 16.5 15.7 14.4 15.6

15 to 19 years

0.7 9.4 11.9 11.3 11.6

20 years or more

3.4 17.3 28.0 28.1

In January 2016, the median length of time that wage and salary workers were employed with their current employer was 4.2 years, down from 4.6 years in January 2014. Median employee tenure is the point at which half of all workers had more tenure and half had less tenure. The median tenure of wage and salary workers ages 55 to 64 (10.1 years) was more than three times that of workers ages 25 to 34 years (2.8 years).

These data are from the Current Population Survey. For more information, see "Employee Tenure in 2016" (HTML) (PDF).

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, 28 percent of workers age 55 and over have been with their current employer 20 years or more at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/28-percent-of-workers-age-55-and-over-have-been-with-their-current-employer-20-years-or-more.htm (visited October 31, 2024).

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