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Bill Morneau, the federal finance minister said last month Canadians should get used to so-called “job churn” as they face short-term employment and multiple career changes.

“We also need to think about, ‘How do we train and retrain people as they move from job to job to job?’ Because it’s going to happen. We have to accept that,” Morneau said.

Tal says it’s actually the opposite — the tenure of employment is increasing in Canada and not just because of an aging population.

“The average tenure of employment has been on a clear upward trajectory, rising from 98 months to 103 months in the last decade,” he notes. “The share of workers who have been with the same employer for more than five years is currently hovering at a record-high of over 50 per cent.”

The economist says researchers have come up with a formula to compensate for an aging population, basing data on estimating job tenure that relies on retention rates derived from the current and the most recent periods of employment.

“It provides a similar message of an upward trend, suggesting an increased probability of staying with the same employer for longer,” says Tal. “Some of the increase in job tenure can be explained by the increased proportion of the aging population in the workforce. Furthermore, as younger Canadians are the first ones to feel the pain of any economic slowdown (last in first out), the average job tenure will rise as the share of older workers in the labour force rises.”