The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employers was 4.2 as of January, the US. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The employee tenure measure is released every two years and was last recorded at 4.6 years in 2014.

Median employee tenure was generally higher among older workers than younger ones, according to the report. Workers ages 55 to 64 had a median tenure of 10.1 years while workers ages 25 to 34 had a median tenure of 2.8 years.

Wage and salary workers in the public sector had more than double the median tenure of private-sector employees in January, 7.7 years and 3.7 years, respectively. One factor behind this difference is age. About three in four of government workers were age 35 and over, compared with about three in five private wage and salary workers.

Within the private sector, workers in manufacturing had the highest tenure among major industries at 5.3 years; workers in leisure and hospitality had the lowest median tenure at 2.2 years. The varying age distributions across industries also factored into play, with workers in manufacturing tending to be older than those in leisure and hospitality.