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No, Millennials Aren't a Bunch of Job-Hopping Flakes (fastcompany.com) 214

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
From a report: Today, Pew researchers published findings that refute yet another stereotype about millennials that actual millennials find infuriating: the idea that they're job-hopping more often than other generations. According to Pew's analysis of recent government data, "college-educated millennials are sticking with their jobs longer than their Gen X counterparts."
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No, Millennials Aren't a Bunch of Job-Hopping Flakes More

No, Millennials Aren't a Bunch of Job-Hopping Flakes

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  • No so many jobs to hop to (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gatkinso ( 15975 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @08:13AM (#54268665)

    I suspect this is the driving factor.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      I suspect this is the driving factor.

      That was self evident to me. They're not loyal to their employers because their employers are great and worthy of their time. They don't have options, so they cling to what they can get. In two other millennial stories appearing today and not being featured on Slashdot; millennials can't afford the world their parents have made for themselves, so they're still mostly at home [cnsnews.com], wondering who pulled up the ladder. As such, their prolonged childhood [nbcnews.com] continues.

      And if your knee jerks up and smacks into your

  • Pew Researchers.. no shit sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brxndxn ( 461473 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @08:16AM (#54268679)
    This just in.. Pew Researchers find out yet another stereotype only applies to a small percentage of the group. I can't wait to see the non-millennial minds blown when they conduct more research and find out the following: - Millennials are mutli-racial despite being portrayed as upper middle class and white - Millennial work ethics vary greatly - Some are hard workers and others are not - Millennial spending habits are all over the map - Some are savers and some are spenders - Some Millennials voted for Trump (GASP) Every generation is different.. I just hope one outright identifier of our generation is our acknowledgement of our differences and ability to cultivate a society where our differences are respected. In other words, be more specific when trying to identify trends across groups of people.
    • For a clear picture of the economy, it's important to have better data and quantify shit. "Common sense tells me that some millenials don't job hop!" is insufficient. You don't want legislators making retirement policy on an assumption that millenials all do or do not job hop. But at the same time you don't want them making retirement policy saying "Well, every snowflake millenial is different, so we don't really know." You want legislators having hard numbers showing that gen xers and millenials are statis

  • Staying still can lead to financial suicide... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @08:18AM (#54268693)
    The problem with holding one job for too long in IT Support is that you make less money with 2% raises over time than someone who has short-term contracts at different companies. I ran into an old coworker a few years ago during a job interview. He was still making the same kind of money that I made when we worked together 10+ years ago, but the company wanted to pay me 40% more for doing the same work. Fortunately, I had three job offers to pick from and went for the higher offer from a contracting agency.
  • I say this as a Gen-Xer.

    My parents were in careers where you could reasonably be expected to work in the same company all your life. but things are different now. Not sure if the job market is more turbulent, or attitudes have changed. Perhaps this is a result of changes in corporate culture, or faster moving technology resulting in a lot of companies expanding, contracting, forming and collapsing. I get the impression that it was a similar situation for workers during the industrial revolution as well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gatkinso ( 15975 )

      Your parents were working for companies run by the greatest generation.

      Gen X'ers worked for companies run by your parents. See the connection?

      Now that Gen X is running the show, what is left seems to be more stable.

      • I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing. Job flexibility has its benefits, after all. But there is certainly a quid pro quo here. The employee's loyalty is a reflection of the company's loyalty.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      I'm gen-x as well, our parents could do so because the job market was stable. There wasn't the issues with having your job outsourced to some 3rd party TFW or H1B because companies abuse it. These days? Pretty much everyone has those problems. The more specialized your job the higher the risk that some bean counter will tell management that you can be dumped for someone who costs 1/3 while farming out your specialized training to x company who will save them a ton of money(but ends up costing them more)

    • Re:Gen X are even greater job-hopping flakes! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @10:15AM (#54269443)

      My parents were in careers where you could reasonably be expected to work in the same company all your life

      Your (our) parents worked for companies that cared about employees. Layoffs were a last resort. New technology? Time to send some employees to get some training on that technology. And so on. The result was loyal employees, low hiring costs and massive institutional memory which made the company far more effective in the long run.

      Then the long run became less important. Executive compensation moved from primarily salary with some bonuses/options to primarily bonuses/options with some salary. A big layoff would result in a large pile of cash because of how it could goose one quarter's results, even if it hurt the company in the long run. "Personnel" was replaced with "Human Resources". Training budgets became "waste" instead of a good investment. Same with the "R" in R&D. Employees were now lazy moochers taking away from the bottom line, instead of the people who actually create that bottom line.

      Employees responded to this in the entirely logical way: if the company doesn't give a damn about the employees, the employees aren't going to give a damn about the company. And changing jobs every 3-5 years brought in larger raises than staying put.

      Moving back to the old paradigm would require a massive philosophical change in the executive suite. So it's not going to happen any time soon.

      • And changing jobs every 3-5 years brought in larger raises than staying put.

        Bingo. If companies cared about retaining employees, they would give them more than inflation-level raises.

        • Why? Are they providing more than inflation-level additional value?

          In my field, billing rates have increased just under 1% annually over the past 20 years in constant dollar terms for a fixed position. Factoring in inflation of 2%, that is an effective reduction in pay... However, I now make about 6-7x as much inflation adjusted as when I started because of the value I provide (at least in theory; I mostly just read /.). That might not be the norm, but looking at a 3x increase you have the same effective

    • My father worked in one job for his whole life. My mom had a total of three (mostly because of pregnancies). I had 8 so far. And counting. I'm probably about at half time for my total working years.

      Companies today keep reorganizing constantly, something that was pretty much unheard of two or three decades ago. That means people get laid off, people get hired, people get switched around, people get moved to other companies in mergers where they might not like the company culture and quit...

      Now add that leaps

  • Two things (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dfm3 ( 830843 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @08:43AM (#54268809) Journal
    There are two factors at play here. One, employers these days no longer offer as many incentives that lead to employee retention, and instead treat them as a disposable "human resource" to be squeezed in the eternal quest to maximize profit. It's virtually impossible to find an employer with a pension plan any more, and even benefits such as retirement and health insurance are becoming increasingly rare.

    All of those benefits were taken for granted 30 years ago. When I was growing up in the 80's, the assumption was that you go to college, get a degree, then immediately get hired by a company and start building your retirement savings and pension while slowly working your way up the corporate ladder within the organization. These days, that's not as common. The baby boomers had those things, and lived under the assumption that each generation would be a little more well off than the last. Thus we were all told that if we worked just a little harder, we'd be more successful at the American dream.

    Second, the loss of benefits and the downward trend of wages meant that more of us in the gen-x/pre-millenial generation spent years trying to delude ourselves that those types of job benefits were "just around the corner" and that our current job was just a stepping stone to the career that would give us job security and retirement savings. Now the reality of the new economy has set in and the benefits are vanishing, and most millennials have realized that in many cases the job they have is as good as it's going to get. Switching employers is also getting harder because there is so much competition these days; an opening that at one time would get 20-30 applicants now receives hundreds of applications from people looking for that elusive career.

    • The baby boomers had those things, and lived under the assumption that each generation would be a little more well off than the last. Thus we were all told that if we worked just a little harder, we'd be more successful at the American dream.

      The baby boomers voted to give themselves those things when they had retired. While they were working they only had to pay for a smaller number of older people who did not live as long past the retirement age as the boomers are going too. That is the main reason successive generations are screwed. Whether by student loan, higher property prices, higher rents, more taxes, higher 'pension pot' contributions, more immigration, the young worker of today is going to get the income squeezed out of them to pay for

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dfm3 ( 830843 )

        The baby boomers voted to give themselves those things when they had retired.

        Exactly! And you how much I would love to be able to make the same choice! After retirement, my father is able to draw from a pension and a 401(k) from the two employers he worked at over his lifetime, and it's more than enough to live comfortably. At this point I only have the latter, and it will not be nearly enough to support even my basic needs when I retire. And for the very reasons you mention, it's nearly impossible for me to save beyond that. What savings I do have, I pray that nobody in my family e

    • I, for one, was glad to see the defined benefit pension go and be replaced with increased employer contributions to the 401K. That is assuming your employer actually did that second part. With a traditional pension there is typically a rapid rise in the value between the ages of 50 and 65. If you work for a company for 20+ years only to get laid off when you hit your mid 40s you can be totally screwed with the pension. Just getting to the knee in the curve and then have to start over. Two pensions wort
    • After ObamaCare got passed in 2010, the contracting agencies that I worked for started offering full benefit packages (including health insurance) to stay competitive with each other. When I worked seven days a week for two years (2011-2013) after my Chapter Seven bankruptcy in 2011, I worked for three different contracting agencies that were offering nearly identical benefit packages. The current contracting agency that I work for offered the regular benefit package, paid federal holidays and 20 Paid Time

    • All of those benefits were taken for granted 30 years ago

      Yes, but it was definitely on the way out by this time also. I used to read a lot of business journals in high school and knew that the lifelong employment of my parents was to be a thing of the past and planned my career around it. Life and the and the economic environment is always changing. My parents, or at least grand parents, probably grew up thinking that they would be farmers.

  • Gen X was the same (Score:3)

    by known_coward_69 ( 4151743 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @08:58AM (#54268889)

    I think we even pioneered it. Late 90's up to around 2001 and then starting in 2003 people were spending 6 months to a year at a job and then looking for something else

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )

      people were spending 6 months to a year at a job and then looking for something else

      Are you talking a McDonalds job, or an actual job? My personal experience doesn't support that view, if you are talking about actual jobs. I've been within the same group of companies for 10 years, prior to that it was about 4 years. The majority of my colleagues at both places tended to hover at the 5+ year mark. Yes, some people left after short stints, but those were the minority.

      Prior to starting my career, I worked a multitude of "McDonalds Jobs", where my longest tenure was probably a year and a

      • One should note that the jobs back then came with an expiration date. When you were hired as a programmer for the latest and greatest technology, you knew that you are gone the moment the next big thing comes along and you're not the one who can play that new tune.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )
          Fair point. In that respect, I'm glad I don't follow the cutting edge. Shit moves too fast, literally no way to keep up.

      • people were spending 6 months to a year at a job and then looking for something else

        Are you talking a McDonalds job, or an actual job? My personal experience doesn't support that view, if you are talking about actual jobs.

        It does mine with the .com boom and the companies that survived it. Amazon pretty much thrives on short term employment now averaging about 18 months. The thing is that its about padding your resume till you finally get a job you want to keep.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by flink ( 18449 )

      I think we even pioneered it. Late 90's up to around 2001 and then starting in 2003 people were spending 6 months to a year at a job and then looking for something else

      I am tail end of gen X (born '78). I don't know if it's me or just the Boston job market, but I don't see that much rapid job hopping around here among my peers. Personally, I worked for a single company from '97 to 2012, although there was an acquisition thrown in there. I do know that as a hiring manager, if I see a resume with 5 positions in the last 4 years, it is going to the bottom of my pile. When you are working on a large deployed system with plenty of legacy code, it takes at least a few month

    • I think we even pioneered it. Late 90's up to around 2001 and then starting in 2003 people were spending 6 months to a year at a job and then looking for something else

      Hardly. The reason the 50's are looked back so fondly on is because there was increasing labor wages and much job jumping to be done to get an effective raise. It was like a decade long .com boom.

  • Gen-X don't leave their jobs, the jobs leave them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by substance2003 ( 665358 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @09:09AM (#54268955)
    As a Gen-Xer myself, I wasn't leaving my jobs, most of the time, the jobs were contracts or would end.
    We didn't have stability like our parents before us or expect a wage hike without moving to another company.
    Do the number separate the ones leaving vs those being let go?
    My current position is the 1st in my career where I have made it past 5 years of service non-stop. I did work before in another field where I lasted more than 4 years but would end up on unemployment insurance every year for 3 months worth time more or less depending on production needs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      We didn't have stability like our parents before us or expect a wage hike without moving to another company.

      Correct. It's a venture capitalist world. They just incubate companies until they can cash out and then it's "See you l8r!" and off to do it again and again and again. There is no such thing as a long term engagement anymore. The venture capitalists made that a thing of the past. You reap what you sow bitches!

      • Correct. It's a venture capitalist world. They just incubate companies until they can cash out and then it's "See you l8r!" and off to do it again and again and again. There is no such thing as a long-term engagement anymore. The venture capitalists made that a thing of the past. You reap what you sow bitches!

        Actually, for Gen X, the problem was that the baby boomers were holding onto the jobs for so long that there were no places for us it seemed. We were even seen by some medias as being the generation with no hope.

  • The increasing job tenure of college-educated millennials is consistent with a decline in employer switching among all working-age adults since the 1980s," Pew researchers point out. "The reasons for the decline are not well understood,"

    I think it's pretty easy to understand why job hopping is on the rise.

    1) Raises not keeping pace with salary for new positions
    2) Companies no longer value employees with long term benefits
    3) The instant gratification me, my, mine attitude of America.

  • Are like the dog in that movie...talk to him, sees a squirrel and goes after that. most are just after the next big thing. They are chasing things, instead of building a career.

  • The first generation to have degrees so they can work as baristas.

    • The first generation to have degrees so they can work as baristas.

      The first generation that has to have degrees so they can work as baristas.

      • This.

        I just recently saw an ad looking for some plain clerk job applicants and wanting at least college level education. What the FUCK is going on there? Either the school system is so borked that you can't expect someone with a high school diploma to read, write and do basic math anymore, or companies are just completely gone nuts.

        • I just recently saw an ad looking for some plain clerk job applicants and wanting at least college level education. What the FUCK is going on there? Either the school system is so borked that you can't expect someone with a high school diploma to read, write and do basic math anymore, or companies are just completely gone nuts.

          I think companies are deliberately devaluing college education to pay workers less money. When I skipped high school to go to community college to get an education in the early 1990's, I had trouble starting my technical career because level-entry jobs required a high school diploma. Never mind that I had an associate degree. If I was starting over today, my associate degree may not be enough to get a level-entry job.

          http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/business/college-degree-required-by-increasing-number-of [nytimes.com]

        • I think it's a little of both - I provide tech support to a lot of college students, I see random samples of their writing from abandoned printouts and such...and honestly i'm not sure how a lot of them make it through classes when finishing high school left them barely able to write coherent sentences, they can't handle basic "click X to do Y" computer tasks, etc.

          If this is at all representative of people with high school diplomas lately, I kinda can see why employers are heading that way.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • RTFM (Score:2)

    by jon3k ( 691256 )

    Note: Workers refers to wage and salary workers. The self-employed are not included.

    How much of the "gig-economy", the exact thing that we all believe causes shorter "tenure", is being excluded entirely? Certainly at least a couple percentage points, right?

    Sincerely,
    A Millenial

    • "Self-employed not included" is all you need to know this. Because more and more companies don't employ you, they "hire" you. As a contractor. Which makes you technically self employed. For the 2-3 months they want you.

  • Awful Stats (Score:3)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @11:26AM (#54270015) Journal
    First of all, I don't subscribe to any of the millennial bashing as generalizing this way is pointless. OTOH 2000 was the peak of the internet go-go years and job availability/mobility was very high. 2016 not so much....

  • Demonizing Millenials = Convenient Scapegoat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zifn4b ( 1040588 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @01:37PM (#54271045)

    The reason why millenials are demonized and discriminated against is because it's a lot easier to find a convenient scapegoat than to solve real problems. It's just classic dysfunctional behavior. In fact, I would say millenials are more brave about engaging in conflict about legitimate issues in our society and workplaces that are truly wrong and need to be fixed. They're armed with more knowledge and can't just be bullied into submission with a bunch of pseudo-intellectualist talk.

    Would it surprise you to know that I, myself, am not a millenial? Here's what I have to say about typical "older people". If the music is too loud, you're too old. It's time for the old, obsolete ways of doing things that don't work in modern society to be put out to pasture. If that means old people need to go into nursing homes, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way in. You either embrace evolution and progress or you get left behind. Your choice. Choose wisely.

  • In 2000, it was the culture to move quickly from job to job to bump your pay. I didn't and watched my friends' salaries rise 50% or more beyond mine. In 2017, you're pretty darned lucky to just have a good paying job, so you stick around. It may be a culture of fear, but it's a better overall environment.

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