7.
CHANGING JOBS AND CAREERS
Number of Jobs Held in a Lifetime
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is frequently asked for data on how many jobs the average person holds in a lifetime. To determine the number of jobs in a lifetime, one would need data from a "longitudinal" survey that tracks the same respondents over their entire working lives, and so far, no longitudinal survey has ever tracked respondents for that long. However, a survey begun in 1979 has tracked younger baby boomers over a considerable segment of their lives.
A BLS news release published in June 2008 examined the number of jobs that people born in the years 1957 to 1964 held from age 18 to age 42. The title of the report is "Number of Jobs Held, Labor Market Activity, and Earnings Growth among the Youngest Baby Boomers: Results from a Longitudinal Survey."
These younger baby boomers held an average of 10.8 jobs from ages 18 to 42. (In this report, a job is defined as an uninterrupted period of work with a particular employer.) On average, men held 10.7 jobs and women held 10.3 jobs. Both men and women held more jobs on average in their late teens and early twenties than they held in their mid thirties.
From ages 18 to 42, some of these younger baby boomers held more jobs than average and others held fewer jobs. Twenty-three percent held 15 jobs or more, while 14% held zero to four jobs.
One limitation of the NLSY79 is that it does not reflect the labor market behavior of people who are not in that particular cohort; that is, people who are older or younger than the baby boomers in the survey or who immigrated to the United States after the survey began in 1979.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Frequently Asked Questions
Number of Careers in a Lifetime
The Bureau of Labor Statistics never has attempted to estimate the number of times people change careers in the course of their working lives. Their reason is that no consensus has emerged on what constitutes a career change. A few examples may help to illustrate the difficulty of defining careers and career changes.
Did an Air Force pilot who retired from the military and began flying planes for a private cargo company or commercial airline experience a career change? Did a construction worker who decided to start his own home-remodeling business experience a career change? Did a mechanical engineer who quit her job to teach physics and math in a high school experience a career change? What about a newspaper reporter who became a TV news anchor? All of these examples involve a change in occupation, industry, or both, but do they represent career changes? Each example probably would generate a difference of opinion. In the absence of consensus about what constitutes a career and a career change, BLS has not attempted to estimate the number of times people change careers.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Fequently Asked Questions
