Job tenure can be elusive—especially for some workers with disabilities

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and Statistics Canada recently released a new study along with the latest data on the employment experiences of workers with disabilities.

Data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) show that the average job tenure (consecutive months with the same employer) across all industries declined from 103.2 months in 2014 to 100.3 months in 2024, after trending upward over the previous decade. Most individual industries showed a decline.

Average job tenure among all occupational categories also declined or were little changed over the same period, even in some categories long considered stable.

There are a variety of factors involved in how long a worker stays with the same employer, including the age of workers or their immigration status. For example, average job tenure tends to decrease when new entrants—such as younger workers or immigrants—enter the labour market in larger numbers. At the same time, some personal factors can affect the ability of workers to stay in their job, and having a disability can be a significant factor.

Last month, Statistics Canada released the first study of its kind on median job tenure, entitled “How long do Canadians with and without disabilities stay with their employer? A novel analysis by disability type,” which compares Canadians with and without disabilities. Let’s have a look at some of the key findings.

Job tenure depends on age and sector of employment

The study, which uses 2022 data from the Canadian Survey on Disability and the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database (based on tax records), found that median job tenure was generally longer among employees with disabilities, due to employees with disabilities being older on average than employees without disabilities. Job tenure is generally longer among older employees, as these employees have had more time to accumulate years of experience.

Similarly, employees with disabilities were employed in services-producing sectors in higher proportions than employees without disabilities. Job tenures tend to be longer in services-producing sectors, like retail, than in goods-producing sectors, like construction.

The differences in the characteristics of employees with and without disability can make unadjusted statistics on job tenure misleading. The study therefore adjusted job tenure for age, gender and sector of employment, finding that employees with disabilities had median job tenure in line with what was expected given these factors. However, results varied by disability type and severity of disability. Because persons can have more than one disability type, findings for a given disability type are not mutually exclusive.

Shorter job tenures for developmental, mental health-related and learning disability types

There were differences when results were broken down by disability type. Before adjustment for age, gender and sector of employment, median job tenure in 2022 was shortest among employees with developmental (4.86 years), mental health-related (5.15 years) and learning (5.17 years) disabilities. Age was again a significant factor, as employees with those disabilities tended to be younger than employees with hearing (7.61 years) and seeing (7.37 years) disabilities, who had the longest median job tenures.

After adjustment for age, gender and sector of employment, median job tenure was shorter than expected if the disability was one of the following types: dexterity, mobility, memory, flexibility, mental health-related or pain-related.

Similarly, taking into account age, gender and sector of employment, median tenure for persons with severe disabilities was significantly shorter than expected, whereas it aligned with expectations for those with less severe disabilities.

Labour market participation, job tenure and business ownership—where are we now?

The LFS releases data annually on labour market participation by persons with disabilities. The latest data are from 2024, when the employment rates of persons with disabilities (46.4%) and the employment rate of those without disabilities (66.2%) each fell by the same rate (-0.7 percentage points) from the previous year.

However, there was a notable drop in the employment rate among youth with disabilities, and the wage gap between employees with and without disabilities widened.

Staying in a job for a shorter period of time can also carry other risks. Another analysis based on LFS data found that in 2024, less than half (49.3%) of employees with a job tenure of less than one year had access to vacation leave in their job, 23.6 percentage points lower than the national average.

Significantly higher proportions of permanent employees (78.0%) than non-permanent employees (32.0%) had access to paid vacation leave. In addition, those in management occupations and in natural and applied sciences had the highest rates of paid leave entitlement.

In the third quarter of 2025, 3.0% of private-sector businesses in Canada were majority-owned by persons with disabilities, compared with 2.2% a year earlier.