Where People Stick With Their Jobs

The idea of sticking with one employer for their whole lifetime appalls most younger people, even though this model wasn’t uncommon just a generation ago. OECD figures show that employees in Italy are the OECD’s most loyal, on average spending 12.2 years with one employer. Southern Europeans and the French did stick with employers longer on average, while UK and Irish employees where more eager to shop around for new employers. They stayed with one for only eight and 7.9 years, respectively.

Outside of Europe, employees changed their companies even more frequently. In Brazil, they got a new job every 7.2 years (2018 figure), while in South Korea they stuck around only 5.9 years on average – the lowest in the OECD. Especially young people in the country have more recently been ditching their employers in growing numbers. According to Reuters, cut-throat corporate culture and some of the longest work hours in the world are causing entry-level employees to just give up on white collar work altogether. Quitting your job was actually among the top 10 new year’s resolutions in the country for 2020.

Up-to-date figures for Japan and the U.S. were not included in the statistic.