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Showerthought: the average worker stays at a job just over 4 years now, but my dad did 31 at one place
I was reading a piece on the BLS site about tenure and the number that jumped out at me was 4.1 years. That's the median these days. My dad clocked 31 years at a tool and die shop in Cleveland before they shut the doors. Same parking spot, same lunch box, same crew. He still grabs coffee with two of those guys every Friday. When I hopped jobs back in 2019 and then again in 2022, he looked at me like I was speaking a different language. I get it now, the math changed on us. Pensions went away, raises got smaller, and hopping is the only real bump you can count on. So for the folks who've made a few moves, how do you decide when it's time to jump versus when you're just running from something that would follow you anyway?
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morganmartinez2d ago
Wondering if the 4 year number is even the real story here, since median tenure has hovered around that mark for decades and people just notice it more now. The pension thing matters way more than the hopping itself, because a guy with a locked-in retirement has a reason to stay that you can't get from a 3 percent raise. Maybe the better question is whether jumping actually pays off long term or if we just tell ourselves that to feel better about not having a choice.
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