October 1, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Employee tenure by industry, 2008

In January 2008, within the private sector, workers in manufacturing had the highest median tenure with their current employer among the major industries (5.9 years).

[Chart data—TXT]

In contrast, workers in leisure and hospitality had the lowest median tenure (2.1 years).

These differences in tenure reflect many factors, one of which is varying age distributions across industries. Workers in manufacturing tend to be older on average than workers in leisure and hospitality.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "Employee Tenure in 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-1344.

Related TED article:

• Employees with 10 years or more of tenure with the same employer, 2008