Page 4 The Skanner CAREERS EDITION June 1, 2016
CAREERS
ADAM ALLINGTON
For The Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — A
new poll says more than
40 percent of America’s
baby boomers stayed
with theiremployer  for
more than 20 years. But
it’s unlikely that their
children or grandchil-
dren will experience the
same job tenure.
The survey of more
than 1,000 Americans 50
and older by the Associ-
ated Press-NORC Center
for Public Afairs Re-
search shows that 41 per-
cent of those employed
workers have spent two
decades with the same
company, including 18
percent who’ve stayed at
least 30 years.
But it’s a trend more
common among the old-
er baby boomers than
younger ones, and tradi-
tional pensions appear
to be one of the driving
factors.
Among those who have
had at least 20 years with
a single  employer, the
survey found that about
half are excited about re-
tirement, but a third are
anxious about their post-
work lives.
David McQuinn, 61, is
retiring Tuesday ater 30
years with MiTek, a con-
struction and engineer-
ing irm in suburban St.
Louis. He says there were
times he thought about
leaving but he liked his
co-workers and his se-
nior position and also
owned stock in the com-
pany.
“I started working
young and I’ve been a
man in a hurry my whole
life,” he says, “and now
I’m in a hurry to not be in
a hurry.”
His experience ex-
empliies a trait among
boomers: more attach-
ment to the company
than the younger gener-
ations. But even among
older Americans there’s
a gap in employment ten-
ure: Half of those aged 65
and up but only a third of
those age 50 to 64 have
stayed with the same em-
ployer for at least two de-
cades.
The shit may be less
about diferences in atti-
tude than changes in jobs
— and beneits.
AP PHOTO/JEFF ROBERSON
Poll: Age, Income Factors in Staying with Single Employer
David McQuinn poses for a photo Tuesday, May 10, 2016, in
Chesterield, Mo. McQuinn, 61, is retiring Tuesday after 30 years with
MiTek, a construction and engineering irm in suburban St. Louis, a
length of time with one employer that is unlikely to be achieved by
many younger workers.
About two-thirds of
those who stayed with
one  employer  for 20 or
more years had a pen-
sion, according to the
survey, compared with
only a third of those who
had never stayed that
long with one employer.
Those deined beneit
pension plans are slowly
disappearing. The Bu-
“
pital before applying for
and getting a job as a clin-
ical assistant.
She kept that job for 17
years, before moving to
a neighboring children’s
hospital. Liting children
into hospital beds, she
recalls, was easier on her
back then moving adults.
“I thought about look-
ing for other jobs, but
Higher churn in the labor
market also means compa-
nies will have to work harder
to hire and retain the work-
ers they need
reau of Labor Statistics
reported that only 18 per-
cent of private workers
were covered by these
plans in 2011, down from
35 percent in the early
1990s. More common
now are plans like 401(k)
s, which are more porta-
ble from one employer to
another.
The agency has report-
ed that a larger propor-
tion of older workers
than younger workers
had more tenure on the
job.
For example it said, in
January 2014, the aver-
age tenure with the cur-
rent  employer  was 7.9
years for people 45 to 54,
compared to 10.4 years
for those 55 to 64.
“Think of all the choic-
es people have today. I
mean, who ever heard
of a social-media analyst
ive years ago?” says Joe
Coughlin, the director
of the Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology’s
AgeLab.
Coughlin says higher
churn in the labor mar-
ket also means compa-
nies will have to work
harder to hire and retain
the workers they need,
and this creates leverage.
“Millennials think this
way instinctively,” he
said. “They’ve seen their
parents laid of by these
large corporations, so
there is less trust.”
Christina
Guerrero
worked in the mid-1980s
as a housekeeper at Aus-
tin’s Brackenridge Hos-
almost any hospital these
days would require me to
go back to school to inish
my GED, so that was a big
reason for staying put,”
says Guerrero, now 61.
According to the AP-
NORC survey, young-
er baby boomers were
much more likely to have
gone back to school in the
past ive years: 30 per-
cent of those age 50-64,
compared to 19 percent
of those 65 and older.
Most went for addi-
tional training because
their  employer  required
it or they wanted to learn
something new or fun.
Only 17 percent said they
received training to start
a new career.
Joe Abraham, 65, says
he’s sure he “dodged a
few bullets along the
way” during his 36-year
career as an attorney at
Ford Motor Co.
Now retired, he says
the raises and beneits
he got from Ford were
not worth giving up for
something else. Plus, he
just liked his colleagues.
The AP-NORC Center
survey was conducted
March 8-27 by NORC at
the University of Chica-
go, with funding from
the Alfred P. Sloan Foun-
dation. It involved online
and telephone inter-
views with 1,075 people
aged 50 and older na-
tionwide, most of whom
are members of NORC’s
probability-based Amer-
iSpeak panel.