More long-tenured workers were displaced between 2023 and 2025 than lost their jobs in the prior two-year survey period, according to a report released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

The report defines “long-tenured” displaced workers as people aged 20 and over who lost or left jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work, or their position or shift was abolished.

For the period January 2023 to December 2025, there were 3.3 million long-tenured displaced workers who had held their jobs for a period of at least three years. That’s 746,000 more than reported between January 2021 and December 2023.

Of long-tenured displaced workers, 66.1 percent found other employment – a percentage roughly equal to the percentage re-employed in the previous report covering 2021 to 2023.

The report showed that an additional 4.1 million people who held jobs for three years or less (short-tenured workers) were also displaced.

Together, 7.4 million people between 2023 and 2025 were displaced from work. That’s 1.1 million more than reported in the 2026 survey.

Long-tenured displacements were most notable in manufacturing (19 percent of loses), professional and business services (16 percent of loses), and retail trade (10 percent of loses). 

The greatest reason for long-tenure displacements was because their job or shift was eliminated (44.4 percent). A close second at 32.6 percent was due to plant or company closures. 

Notable is that the percentage of workers receiving written advance warning of job loss was down 13 percentage points from the 2021 to 2023 period, when 58 percent received such notice. For the 2023 to 2025 survey, just 45 percent received written advance notice. 

While the report does not break down the data at the state level, it does provide data by geographic regions. The South Atlantic division (which includes Virginia along with Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina) and the West South Central division (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas) are the only two that realized an increase in the number of long-tenured displaced workers.   

The biennial Worker Displacement Survey is a supplement to the Current Population Survey, which is a monthly survey of households that serves as the primary source of information for the nation’s labor force.