Is the era of the 'job for life' about to end and, as many commentators have suggested, be replaced by a life of employment uncertainty and a succession of dead-end jobs? And are the reasons behind this scenario indeed the usual suspects of 'trade and technology', namely the expansion and intensification of globalized competition and the pervasive presence of information technology? The received wisdom on these issue was disputed by Simon Burgess (University of Bristol and CEPR) during a lunchtime meeting organized by CEPR on 12 December 1997. Drawing on recent research, Burgess claimed that there is no strong tendency for shorter job tenures, and that the facts suggest that fears of a dramatic change in the nature of work, including the emergence of a new 'industrial peasantry', are overdone.

According to Burgess, the data demonstrate that the average length of job tenure in the United Kingdom is about 12 years for women and 18 years for men. These figures suggest that there is still a large element of stability in the labour market. The averages naturally summarize a very disparate set of experiences: although 24% of men’s jobs had a duration of less than five years, over 40% lasted more than 20 years and 24% more 30 years. For women, the corresponding figures were 41%, 18% and 12%.

These numbers show clearly that, at any particular moment, a substantial percentage of workers are in short-term jobs. A common argument is that this fraction has increased substantially in the past 20 years or so, with a corresponding fall in the proportion in longer-term jobs. The data, however, show that this is not the case. Elapsed job tenure was the same for women in the early 1990s as it was in 1975; for men it had fallen by about one year. The proportion of workers who had been in their jobs for less than a year was the same in 1992 as in 1975. And, while the percentage in jobs for more than five years was lower in the 1990s for men (though not for women) than in the 1970s, the difference was not dramatic.

Furthermore, despite very different labour market regulations and institutions, there is little difference in job tenure between the United Kingdom and Italy; if anything, jobs appear to last slightly longer in the less regulated UK labour market. For a 35 year-old, averagely qualified worker in a medium-sized company, and controlling for other factors, the chance of having a job that has lasted at least five years is 50% for a female manual worker in manufacturing in both countries, and 40% for a female non-manual worker in a service industry in both countries. For men, the corresponding numbers for the same cases are 53% in the United Kingdom and 49% in Italy for manufacturing, and 42% in the United Kingdom and 38% in Italy for the services sector.

Why, Burgess asked, is there this discrepancy between the facts on job tenure and the widespread public concern over insecurity? One possible explanation is that employees in the media sector – perhaps justifiably – have been feeling insecure and have transmitted that fear to the rest of society. Another possibility is that individuals on temporary contracts, or with less formal job protection, may feel insecure even though, as the data suggest, their contracts are generally renewed. Finally, individuals feeling worried about their jobs may take actions to offset the perceived threats. Job insecurity may reveal itself in longer working hours, lower wage claims and the like, all of which may counteract the influences of 'trade and technology' to produce stable job-tenure outcomes.

If the facts suggest that jobs last about as long now as they have done for the last 20 years or so, can anything be said about the 'best' level for average job tenure? In the public debate, the assumption tends to be that, from an individual's viewpoint, the longer a job lasts the better. Although this may, in part, reflect conflation of the distinct question of fear of unemployment, a high chance of remaining in the same job for a long time nevertheless clearly reduces individual risk.

From the viewpoint of the economy as a whole, however, the answer is much less clear. What matters above all for a country in the medium and long run is aggregate productivity growth. Job tenure affects this in two potentially conflicting ways. First, longer job tenures are conducive to training, and provide the right environment for appropriate work incentives. But second, modern economies are continually buffeted by shocks – such as changes in tastes, arrival of new products and production techniques – and short job tenures facilitate rapid reallocation of workers from suddenly less-productive to more-productive businesses. Depending on their circumstances, different countries will have different optimal portfolios of long-term and short-term jobs.

In addition, Burgess offered some interesting information on the determinants of job tenure. First, he argued that there is a significant link between education levels and the length of time spent in a job. But the nature of the link is unexpected: those with some further education are more likely to be in a job which they may have held for only a short time than people who left school early. In particular, people with a degree are far more likely than others to have been in a job for less than a year – implying that they move jobs more frequently. Second, the likelihood that someone will remain in an industry for more than five years varies among industries. Jobs in construction and services tend to have short tenures; jobs in energy and agriculture tend to last longer.

Third, the presence of children in the family has different effects on men's and women's employment patterns. A woman with a pre-school child is twice as likely as a woman with no children to have held her present job for less than one year. With men, the effect on job tenure of having a pre-school child is minimal. Fourth, people whose spouses are in work tend to have held their own job for longer. Finally, white women are more likely to have been in their job for only a short time than non-white women; exactly the reverse, however, applies to men.

In conclusion, Burgess acknowledged that the numbers he was reporting were backward looking and that the world could change tomorrow. The implications of the data, however, were that there was no evidence that such changes are imminent. On that basis, it was his contention that reports of the death of 'jobs for life' appeared to be exaggerated.