Employee Tenure, 2008, p. 2

on employee tenure—the amount of time an individual has been with his or her current employer—show that career jobs never existed for most workers, and still do not. The median tenure of workers—the midpoint of wage and salary workers ’ length of employment in their current job—was virtually unchanged over the past 25 years: 5.1 years at the same job in 2008, compared with 5.0 years in 1983. GENDER DIFFERENCES: Behind those overall results are very different trends by gender. The median tenure for male wage and salary workers declined (from 5.9 years in 1983 to 5.2 years in 2008) while it increased for female wage and salary workers (from 4.2 years in 1983 to 4.9 years in 2008), leaving the overall level essentially unchanged. PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE SECTOR: Private-sector workers ’ median tenure also held steady over the period, near the 3.9-year level of 2008, but the median tenure for public-sector workers increased from 6.0 years in 1983 to 7.0 years in 2008. Over this 25-year period, median job tenure in the public sector increased significantly relative to the private sector, and currently is about 80 percent higher than that of the private sector. Almost 10 percent of public-sector workers have 25 or more years of tenure (significantly more than the private sector), which leaves public-sector employers facing the retirement of a sizable portion of their most experienced work force in the near future. Retiree Health Benefit Trends Among the Medicare-Eligible Population IMPACT OF ACCOUNTING STANDARDS: Perhaps the single most-important factor that has affected the availability o