American workers are staying with their employers longer again, adding another piece of evidence that the unusually fluid post-pandemic labor market has given way to a more stable—and less mobile—employment environment.
Median tenure among U.S. wage and salary workers rose to 4.1 years in January 2026 from 3.9 years in January 2024, according to data released Thursday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The increase reversed the decline recorded two years earlier, when median tenure reached its lowest level since 2002, but it did not mark a return to the longer job tenures seen earlier last decade. Median tenure was 4.6 years in 2014 and 4.2 years in both 2016 and 2018.
More revealing than the two-tenths increase in the median was the decline in newly attached workers. About 20.6% of wage and salary employees had been with their current employer for 12 months or less in January, down from 22.2% in 2024. That group includes recent hires as well as workers who lost jobs and found new ones or voluntarily switched employers, making the decline consistent with a labor market where fewer employees are moving into new positions.
The data are not a real-time reading of hiring conditions—the survey was conducted in January even though BLS released the results in September—but the direction fits more recent measures of worker turnover. For investors and policymakers, that combination matters more than the tenure increase alone: fewer job changes can reduce employers’ need to compete aggressively for workers, potentially limiting one source of wage pressure while also signaling fewer opportunities for employees to move into better-paying jobs.
Private-Sector Tenure Rebounds
The increase was concentrated in private employment, where median tenure rose to 3.9 years from 3.5 years in 2024. Financial activities posted one of the highest median tenures among major private industries at 5.0 years, while manufacturing and information were both at 4.9 years. Leisure and hospitality remained at the opposite end of the labor market, with median tenure of just 2.4 years, reflecting the sector’s younger workforce and historically higher turnover.
Government employees continued to stay in their jobs considerably longer than private-sector workers, with median tenure of 5.6 years. Federal workers were at 7.0 years, compared with 5.4 years for both state and local government employees. BLS cautioned that industry data beginning in 2026 incorporate a newer Census industry classification system, meaning historical industry comparisons are not strictly comparable.
Age remains one of the strongest explanations for the differences in tenure. Workers ages 25 to 34 had a median of 3.0 years with their employers, up from 2.7 years in 2024, while employees ages 55 to 64 had median tenure of 9.6 years. Women recorded a more pronounced increase than men, with median tenure rising to 4.0 years from 3.6 years, while tenure for men edged up to 4.3 years from 4.2 years.
Those figures make it difficult to interpret rising tenure as simply a sign of stronger job security. Tenure can increase because workers are satisfied and employers are retaining staff, but it can also rise when outside opportunities become less attractive and workers become reluctant to leave existing positions. Changes in hiring, separations and the age composition of the workforce can all move the median.
Recent Hiring Data Point to Less Worker Movement
The latest monthly labor data lean toward the second explanation. U.S. employers had 7.3 million job openings in July, while the hiring rate stood at 3.2%. The quits rate—a closely watched measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs voluntarily—was 1.9%, with about 3.1 million employees quitting during the month. Both hiring and quits changed little from June, reinforcing a picture of relatively restrained labor-market turnover rather than a renewed hiring boom.
The broader employment market is still expanding. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000 in August and unemployment held at 4.1%, while the number of unemployed people was little changed at 7.0 million. Labor-force participation rose slightly to 61.6%, although it remained half a percentage point below its January level.
Slower worker movement may also be helping ease some of the wage competition that characterized the earlier post-pandemic labor shortage. Private-industry wages and salaries increased 3.1% over the 12 months through June, down from a 3.5% pace a year earlier. After adjusting for inflation, BLS said private-sector wages and salaries declined 0.4% over that period.
For markets, employee tenure is unlikely to move Treasury yields or rate expectations by itself, and the January reference period makes the report less timely than payrolls or job-openings data. Its value is as confirmation of a broader labor-market transition: workers are changing employers less frequently, companies are hiring at a measured pace, and wage growth has moderated from earlier levels.
The next test comes with the August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, scheduled for September 29. Another subdued reading for hiring and quits would strengthen the case that longer employee tenure reflects a labor market settling into lower turnover rather than a temporary change in the composition of the workforce.