Labor Mobility and Lengthy Jobs in Nineteenth-Century America

Susan B. Carter and Elizabeth Savoca

The Journal of Economic History, 1990, vol. 50, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Extensive amounts of geographic mobility and high rates of labor turnover before World War I gave rise to the notion that the industrial labor force was “casual” and “impermanent.” But data from firms' payrolls and from nineteenth-century surveys conducted by state labor statistics bureaus show that male workers averaged about four years of experience in their current jobs. Data from an 1892 survey of San Francisco workers show that the average non-union male could expect to remain with his current employer almost 13 years.

Date: 1990
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