2016 Employee Tenure — 2016-09-22

The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.2 years in January 2016, down from 4.6 years in January 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Information on employee tenure has been obtained from supplemental questions in the Current Population Survey (CPS) every 2 years since 1996. The CPS is a monthly sample 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. A number of factors can affect median tenure of workers, including changes in the age profile among workers, as well as changes in the number of hires and separations. For further information about the CPS, see the Technical Note in this news release.