A Lifetime of Jobs

How many jobs have you had in your life?  According to a new report out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans born from 1957 to 1964 held an average of 12.3 jobs from ages 18 to 52. These baby boomers held an average of 5.7 jobs between the ages 18 and 24, or nearly one a year.

The average fell to 4.5 jobs from ages 25 to 34, to 2.9 jobs from ages 35 to 44, and to 1.9 jobs from ages 45 to 52. In other words, the trajectory was that as the worker gets older, he or she holds on to each job for significantly longer.

Although job duration tended to be longer the older a worker was when starting the job, these baby boomers continued to have large numbers of short-duration jobs. Among jobs started by 35- to 44-year-olds, 36 percent ended in less than a year, and 75 percent ended in fewer than five years.