Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships: A Tale of Two Tails

We examine how the distribution of employment tenure has changed over time. The fraction of workers with short tenure (less than one year) has fallen since the mid-1990s, a trend associated with fewer workers cycling among briefly held jobs and an increase in perceived job security among short-tenure workers. Meanwhile, the fraction of men with long tenure (20 years or more) has declined markedly, partly due to the secular shift away from the manufacturing sector and the decline in unionization, as well as an increase in mid-career separations during the 1970s and 1980s that reduced the likelihood of reaching long tenure.