1/11/2013 – Tenure, Tracked (EBRI)

When it comes to things like working careers, there is a widespread assumption that past generations worked for a single employer for all, or most of his/her working years, and then retired with a pension and a gold watch. In contrast, current American workers are believed to change jobs (much) more frequently. In fact, many champion the defined contribution plan design as a better “fit” for today’s workforce, which—certainly in the private sector—is seen as lacking the kind of tenure necessary to accrue sufficient benefits under a traditional pension design.¹As it turns out, the latest data on employee tenure from the January 2012 Supplement to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) show that the overall median tenure of workers—the midpoint of wage and salary workers’ length of employment in their current jobs—was slightly higher in 2012, at 5.4 years, compared with 5.0 years in 1983.

Read the full article at EBRI.