2010 Employee Tenure — 2010-09-14

The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.4 in January 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This measure, referred to as employee tenure, was 4.1 years in January 2008. The increase in tenure among those at work reflects, in part, relatively large job losses among less-senior workers in the most recent recession. Information on employee tenure has been obtained from supplemental questions to the Current Population Survey (CPS) every 2 years since 1996. These data are collected as part of the Displaced Worker Supplement, which is sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 households that provides information on the labor force status of the civilian noninstitutional population age 16 and over. The questions about employee tenure measure how long workers had been with their current employer at the time of the survey.