The New Zealand Herald

Young jump ship most, survey finds

Workers aged between 50 and 70 deemed to be the most loyal employees

- Teuila Fuatai teuila.fuatai@nzherald.co.nz

Workers under 30 are the least loyal employee age group in New Zealand, a new jobs survey shows.

Internatio­nal research company CEB quizzed about 2000 workers on their job plans over the next year for the survey.

A range of factors including whether workers were actively looking for other jobs, how often they thought about quitting and whether they planned to change jobs in the next year were used to assess which workers were at “high risk” of leaving.

The findings showed workers aged 18 to 29 were most likely to leave their jobs.

Those aged between 50 and 70 were deemed to be most loyal, earning a “low risk” rating for jumping ship in the workplace.

Brad Adams, head of human resources research Asia Pacific at CEB, said the results reflected different values between older and younger Kiwis.

Workers in the younger age bracket were often keen to “pursue new opportunit­ies”.

“Younger workers are also still figuring out what their passion is and what career experience­s will make them happy,” Mr Adams said. David Lowe, general manager at the Employers and Manufactur­ers Associatio­n, said most businesses preferred to have a range of ages within staff members to help keep worker turnover relatively steady. Daniel Haines, president of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associatio­ns, said: “When you do hit 30, you’re thinking about having families and paying mortgages.

‘‘There’s a lot of different constraint­s on your time and your options.”

 ?? Picture / Getty Images ?? Workers aged 18 to 29 are most likely to leave their jobs.
Picture / Getty Images Workers aged 18 to 29 are most likely to leave their jobs.

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