Montana Has One of the Highest Resignation Rates in the Country

It doesn't matter which way you look at the data, Montanans appear to be leaving jobs for one reason or another.

How Long Does the Average Person Stay at a Job? 

It used to be that people would say that a person stayed at a job on average for seven years. That's not too far off from an Employee Tenure report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2022 indicating that "wage and salary workers in the public sector had a median tenure of 6.8 years."

However, an article in Fortune Magazine published in the spring of 2024 shows this might be much faster for Gen Z and millennials.

Employee Turnover in Montana

In February, KGVO reported that Montana had the worst turnover in the country, citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiled by Eton Venture Services. In their reporting,  Montana had a 52.4% turnover rate, more than double the lowest turnover rate in the country, which was 23.2% in Connecticut.

Montanans Quitting Their Jobs

The latest examination of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, performed by Omega Law, looked at states with the highest quitting rates between October 2023 and January 2024.

For inquiring minds, "quitting" and "turnover" aren't quite the same, where quitting can be voluntary, but turnover includes employees who leave a company involuntarily.

When they looked at quitting rates, Montana ranked almost as high as it did for turnover. Montana has a four-month average quit rate of 3.18%, which is tied for second with Wyoming. Alaska had the highest four-month average quit rate at 3.5%.

Now there needs to be a study on how many Montana companies are hiring.