June 29, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Tenure down for men, up for women

Over the last 2 decades, men's job tenure—that is, the number of years men have been with their employer—has fallen. In contrast, the job tenure of women has risen slightly.

[Chart data—TXT]

People change jobs for many reasons. For instance, if the economy is performing well, more workers may take the opportunity to change jobs. When that happens, measures of workers' length of service can go down.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. The questions on tenure in the CPS measure how long workers had been with their current employer at the time they were surveyed, not how long they will eventually stay with their employer. Job tenure for a group is measured in this article as median years of service with current employer. Find out more about employment trends in Working in the 21^st Century, (Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2001).