2015 Employment Experience of Youths: Results from a Longitudinal Survey — 2016-04-08

Young adults born in the early 1980s held an average of 7.2 jobs from age 18 through age 28, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Individuals held more jobs at younger ages, and the number of jobs held declined as individuals aged. Young adults held an average of 3.9 jobs from ages 18 to 21 compared with 2.5 jobs from ages 25 to 28. From ages 18 to 28, women with more education held more jobs than women with less education. Regardless of education, men held a similar number of jobs. These findings are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a nationally representative survey of about 9,000 young men and women who were born during the years 1980 to 1984. These respondents were ages 12 to 17 when first interviewed in 1997 and ages 28 to 34 when interviewed for the 16th time in 2013-14.