Job Tenure in Britain 1975-92

The authors examine eighteen years of a large cross-section to build up a picture of job tenure in Britain. They look for changes in the distribution of job tenure over a turbulent period for the U.K. labor market. The authors find some change in the mean job tenure: a decrease in elapsed tenure of about 10 percent between 1975 and 1992. These are important changes but they do not support the view that the dramatic changes in the labor market, technology, and competition have spelled the end of 'jobs for life.' Copyright 1996 by Royal Economic Society.