Those are some great points, I forgot about checking the obits. I know that many more people used to work in one place for a long period of time, but I also think that there were lots of people that moved around as well and somehow there is a nostalgia for the “good old days” when everyone had long careers. I have done a lot of genealogy research and can see census information that tells me the different jobs people had every ten years. Of course, that info is subject to the person collecting it and writing it down, but it also tells me how often people moved and changed jobs.

You could get into a chicken vs. egg argument over whether it was employees or employers who changed, but the difference is real. People who changed jobs would be viewed with suspicion, and companies that had layoffs would be avoided by new graduates. There was a definate stigma attached to job-hopping that made both parties work harder to stay together.

Anecdotal evidence is not rigorous proof, but among the professionals I worked with I noticed the trend of hotshots looking to jump ship for 10% more pay long before layoffs became common. Once either party becomes less loyal, why should the other act any different? There are a lot of bad employers, and always have been, but they are not responsible for all of the changes.

Mobility is one factor certainly, but so is the information exlosion. An employer couldn’t Google(tm) a prospect to find out what disasters his name might be associated with. Employees would not have access to detailed surveys showing how their employer compared to others in salary and benefits. You couldn’t easily post or browse job listings to the entire country.

There have been huge changes in the corporate climate. Once upon a time, companies like AT&T would hire a bright guy and give him an office and hope that he might eventually invent a transistor. Now everything is micromanaged and reported on. At one time companies could plan for the long term (not to say that they all did). If a factory was managing a 5% ROI making widgets, and everyone was happy, then let it go on making widgets. But with the advent of junk-bond takeovers, someone would do a leveraged buyout, fire everyone, sell the pieces, and invest the money in shaky real estate deals that would return 8%. Most managers are under more pressure to produce more, right now, this quarter, than their predecessors were.

Thousands of years ago in a cave somewhere, a Neanderthal grunted something about “these kids today”. (And he was absolutely right, and so am I when I say it today.) That hasn’t changed. But careers and the job market sure have.