Job turnover by occupation

Some occupations have more turnover than others. For example, waiters and waitresses tend to stay at the same job for fewer years than those in supervisor roles. In the chart below, see the median years spent at the same job for different occupations.

Years at the same job, by occupation

Sorted from longest median tenure to least

This is based on data from the Current Population Survey from 2018 to 2024. The survey asks respondents how many years they’ve been at their current job.

Firefighter and police supervisors have the longest tenures, whereas taxi drivers and motor vehicle operators have the shortest tenures. This makes sense. Once you get a supervisor role, you more likely want to stay with the job after working your way up. On the other hand, more part-time jobs tend to have higher turnover.

The chart above shows median tenure along with the 25th and 75th percentiles, because people have been the same job for different amounts of time. For example, the median tenure for a web developer is 4 years and 11 months. The 25th percentile (lower tenure) is 3 years and 4 months, and the 75th percentile (higher tenure) is 7 years and 7 months.

A higher median tends towards higher tenures overall, but that is not always the case. Some people with the same occupation have been in the same job for years or they might have just started. There is a range within each occupation.

Here is how median tenure compares against the spread between 25th and 75th percentile (also known as interquartile range) for each occupation.

Turnover and tenure

Median tenure versus the spread from 25th to 75th percentile (IQR)

Plotting in this way gives us four general categories of occupations: high turnover, higher turnover but with some long-term workers, mixed between short and long tenures, and long tenures with less spread.

The postal service clerks have the widest spread, which at least seems right, anecdotally speaking. Jobs with regular rotation, not too high or low, cluster around the middle of the quadrants. Think teachers, office administrators, and nurses.

With all the recent layoffs, I thought I might see more noise among developer-type jobs. They are kind of in the lower left quadrant, but maybe we’ll see more in the 2026 CPS release.

Notes

The data is based on samples from the Current Population Survey from 2018 through 2024. Calculations are age-adjusted by occupation. A job tenure supplement runs every two years, but the 2026 data hasn’t been released yet. I downloaded microdata via IPUMS. I analyzed and processed the data in R and made the charts with D3.js.