Employees no longer job-hopping – Stats SA

Statistics SA has discovered that since 2008 the amount of time people stay in their jobs has increased. The parastatal announced in a press briefing on 10th of February 2015 in Pretoria.
Explaining the possible cause of the trend, Deputy Director General for Population and Social Statistics, Kefiloe Masiteng, said: “It can provide an indication of the rigidity or mobility of the labour market, and also the ease with which employees can move between jobs.”
She said that higher job tenure was generally associated with older workers, union members, and managerial occupations. The average job tenure in 2014 in South Africa was 47 months, the highest it had been since 2008.
The job tenure trend has been fascinating. In 2008, with GDP growth at 3.6%, job tenure was on average 36 months. This increased to 42 months (2009), 44 months (2010), and 46 months (2011, 2012), before dropping to 45 months in 2013. This is proportional to GDP growth figures, which are the following: 1.5% (2009), 3.1% (2010), 3.6% (2011), 2.5% (2012), 1.9% (2013), and 1.3% (2014).
Intriguingly, Masiteng observed: “Weaker economic growth did not translate into declines in median monthly job tenure.
Elaborating further, she said: “This could be due to the first-in, first-out; last-in, last-out principle, while weaker economic growth conditions also led to less job-hopping because companies are not hiring.”