Workplace: Staying with the same employer forever?

Many large corporations try to make sure that employees don't stay in the same position for too long, even in production. Photo: dpa

“Thank you for 35 wonderful years.” This is how an email from a coworker who is leaving might begin. Spending decades at the same company: Does that even exist nowadays?

In the 1990s, with the increase in flexibility and digitalisation in the world of work, the end of the “old career” was proclaimed in many labour markets, says Prof Thomas Rigotti of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. “However, this has not been the case.”