Find a Job You Really Want In
As new college graduates prepare to enter the workforce, they face a pivotal moment filled with both challenges and opportunities. The question looms: what’s next? For many, especially those from the Baby Boomer generation, job turnover is a prevalent reality as they navigate their careers.
Current insights from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that individuals born during the later years of the Baby Boom (1957-1964) averaged nearly 12 jobs between the ages of 18 and 50, with a significant portion of those positions acquired early in their careers.
Summary of Findings
- Individuals born between 1957 and 1964 held an average of 11.9 jobs from ages 18 to 50
- They held 5.5 jobs between ages 18 to 24 and 4.5 jobs between ages 25 to 34
- Among jobs started between ages 18 to 24, 69 percent ended within a year, and 93 percent concluded in less than five years
- Workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher averaged 6.2 jobs during the ages of 18 to 24
- Men (12.1) experienced a higher job turnover than women (11.6)
- Individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher (12) held more jobs than those without a high school diploma (11.5)
How We Analyzed This Data
Our analysis draws from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, which tracks the employment patterns of nearly 10,000 individuals initially surveyed as young adults and most recently surveyed in their late 40s to early 50s.
Additional Insights
- Overall, Black workers held fewer jobs than their White or Hispanic counterparts
- However, Black individuals with bachelor’s degrees or higher reported the highest job turnover among these groups
- Women aged 18 to 24 holding bachelor’s degrees experienced the most job changes, averaging 6.5 positions
- More than half of the jobs held between ages 25 and 34 ended in under one year, with 70 percent concluding within two years
- The average annual growth rate in hourly earnings showed a decline across age groups
- Men saw higher wage increases from ages 18 to 34, while women experienced greater wage gains from ages 35 to 50
- White workers achieved the highest wage growth from ages 18 to 44
In conclusion, understanding job turnover trends among Baby Boomers provides valuable insights into the evolving labor market landscape. As the workforce continues to adapt, it is essential for both job seekers and employers to recognize these patterns to navigate career paths effectively.
Author
McLeod Brown is a former writer and researcher for the Zippia Career Advice blog. His work at Zippia focused on understanding the relationship between colleges, debt, and jobs. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with a BA in Business Administrator, he is now pursuing a masters of science in analytics from the Institute of Advanced Analytics.
