If Company-Hopping was an Olympic Sport, Which Country Would Get the Gold?

The amount of time employees stay with a single company can tell us a lot about the regional labor market. Short tenures can be a sign of labor market instability, but can also be a consequence of a natural dynamism in regional labor markets, as employees and employers go through several iterations to find a good fit.

Below, we take a look at the median employee tenure by country.

Japan is a notable outlier, with a long history of lifetime employment at the same firm. The US, perhaps surprisingly, has longer tenures than most European countries, who have a reputation for more rigid labor market practices.

Within the US, we see significant heterogeneity by urban concentration. Mega-cities, known for their labor market dynamism, indeed have the lowest tenures, and the long tenures are really driven by the more rural areas of the US.

Key Takeaways:

• The United States has one of the highest median employee tenure in the world, above that of most other major economies.
• Japan has the highest employee loyalty.
• Breaking down MSA’s in the United States according to their population size, we see that the high employee tenure is mostly driven by smaller cities and rural areas, while big cities have higher employee turnover.