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Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships: A Tale of Two Tails

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Abstract

We confront two seemingly-contradictory observations about the US labor market: the rate at which workers change employers has declined since the 1980s, yet there is a commonly expressed view that long-term employment relationships are more difficult to attain. We reconcile these observations by examining how the distribution of employment tenure has changed in aggregate and for various demographic groups. We show that the fraction of workers with short tenure (less than a year) has been falling since the 1980s, consistent with the decline in job changing. Meanwhile, the fraction of workers with long tenure (20 years or more) has been rising modestly owing to an increase in long tenure for women and the ageing of the population. Long tenure has declined markedly among older men; this trend may have spurred popular perceptions that long-term employment is less common than in the past. The decline in long-tenure for men appears due to an increase in mid-career separations that reduce the likelihood of reaching long-tenure, rather than an increase in late-career separations. Nevertheless, survey evidence indicates that these changes in employment relationships are not associated with heightened concerns about job insecurity or decreases in job satisfaction as reported by workers. The decline in short-tenure is widespread, associated with fewer workers cycling among briefly-held jobs, and coincides with an increase in perceived job security among short tenure workers.

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  • Raven S. Molloy & Christopher L. Smith & Abigail Wozniak, 2020. "Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships: A Tale of Two Tails," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-017, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2020-17
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2020.017
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicola Gagliardi & Elena Grinza & François Rycx, 2021. "Can You Teach an Old Dog New Tricks? New Evidence on the Impact of Tenure on Productivity," Working Papers CEB 21-007, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Frech, Maria & Maideu-Morera, Gerard, 2024. "The Hidden Demand for Flexibility: a Theory for Gendered Employment Dynamics," TSE Working Papers 24-1588, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    3. Serdar Birinci & Kurt See & Shu Lin Wee, 2020. "Job Applications and Labor Market Flows," Working Papers 2020-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Jan 2023.
    4. Kuhn, Moritz & Ploj, Gasper, 2020. "Job stability, earnings dynamics, and life-cycle savings," CEPR Discussion Papers 15460, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Manning, Alan & Mazeine, Graham, 2020. "Subjective job insecurity and the rise of the precariat: evidence from the UK, Germany and the United States," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108485, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Charles L. Baum, 2022. "Seven jobs in a lifetime? An analysis of employee tenure," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 543-567, April.
    7. Nicola Gagliardi & Elena Grinza & François Rycx, 2023. "Workers’ tenure and firm productivity: New evidence from matched employer‐employee panel data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 3-33, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Employment stability; Job to job transitions; Job tenure; Labor market dynamism; Labor market fluidity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

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