It’s widely acknowledged that people don’t stay in jobs as long as they used to, but there’s more to the story. Some industries benefit from much higher retention rates than others. Careers site Glassdoor analyzed 5,000 job transitions to understand patterns in job switching. Resumes shared on Glassdoor between 2007 and 2016 served as the basis for the study. Glassdoor defined a job transition as any time an employee listed a new role on his or her resume, including both internal and external job changes. Full methodology details are available here.
In Glassdoor’s data, people changed roles every 15 months, and they switched jobs for two key reasons: insufficient career-advancement opportunities and dissatisfaction with an employer’s culture and values. The study predicts that employees become 5% more likely to stay at their company if the firm increases its career opportunities Glassdoor rating or its culture and values rating by one star (on a five-star rating scale). Pay also affects retention, although not as strongly. A 10% higher base salary leads to a 1.5% greater chance that employees stay at a company for their next role.
To view the top 10 industries where people stay in their jobs the longest, view the gallery below. For the full list of sectors covered in Glassdoor’s analysis, see the end of this post.
Government positions, which number 22.2 million in the U.S., took the top spot for industries where people stay in their jobs the longest. The average tenure of a government employee was 18.6 months in Glassdoor’s data. According to Glassdoor’s chief economist Andrew Chamberlain, people stay longer in government jobs because “the interview process can be lengthy, and the job experience often offers a great tenure, including union representation in many cases.”
Aerospace and defense, where the average tenure is 17.3 months, ranked second. Many in the field are aerospace engineers, a position with median pay of $107,830 as of 2015. People tend to stay longer in this sector because they often have “above average benefits, and a workload and pace that is manageable,” said Chamberlain.
Media was third on the list. Median pay is $53,530 in the industry. Although news media jobs are shrinking, Chamberlain noted, “many people tend to stay in one of these roles longer as the jobs can carry great influence and a sense of purpose delivering timely information to the masses.”
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Full List: The Industries Where People Stay In Their Jobs The Longest
1. Government | average tenure (months): 18.6
2. Aerospace and defense | average tenure: 17.3
3. Media | average tenure: 16.9
4. Information technology | average tenure: 16.8
5. Telecommunications | average tenure: 16.5
6. Non-profit | average tenure: 15.8
7. Healthcare | average tenure: 14.9
8. Finance | average tenure: 14.9
9. Education | average tenure: 14.9
10. Retail | average tenure: 14.8
11. Restaurants, bars and food services | average tenure: 14.6
12. Oil, gas, energy and utilities | average tenure: 14.5
13. Manufacturing | average tenure: 14.0
14. Insurance | average tenure: 13.9
15. Travel and tourism | average tenure: 13.7
16. Accounting and legal | average tenure: 13.6
17. Business services | average tenure: 13.5
18. Transportation and logistics | average tenure: 13.5
19. Real estate | average tenure: 13.3
20. Biotech and pharmaceuticals | average tenure: 12.7
21. Construction, repair and maintenance | average tenure: 10.6
