Employers Expect New Hires to Move On Quickly

One dig against Milennials is that they are job-hoppers, quick to move from one gig to the next.

A new survey shows that employers have bought into that generalization. They don’t expect their young new hires to stick around very long.

Approximately 77 percent of businesses expect a recent graduate to stay in their jobs for less than a year, according to a survey conducted by Express Employment Professionals. The staffing firm polled 115 of its franchise outlets across the country, asking how long they expect the average graduate to stay in their first job (career-related job, that is).

About 68 percent of those surveyed said they expected the first-year hires to last between 7 months and one year in their jobs. That’s up from 58 percent in the previous year, the first time the survey was done.

“These survey results bring to mind a couple of trends that we’ve seen for years now. First, many in the Millennial generation are taking jobs that they are over-qualified for and thus are eager to move on when something better appears. Second, we’ve seen a decrease in employees’ commitment to employers as a higher value is placed on personal advancement,” said Bob Funk, CEO of Express, and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

The survey points to another trend that is changing the relationship between employees, particularly younger ones, and companies. Companies are doing less training of their employees. It has become a bit of a circle in which employees move on because they are not learning enough or advancing quickly, and companies don’t make the effort to hold on to them by giving them the training and advancement they need.

No matter what is driving the trend, it doesn’t bode well for companies who lose good employees, spend more on recruitment, and create unstable work environments.