I'll have 7 years in April of this year - would have been January, but for a short 3 month stint trying another job last year. The longest before that was 8 years, and the next longest was 5 & 1/2. As a metallurgist who graduated in the 1970's, living in western PA and starting work in the steel industry, there are too many companies who I started working for that just don't exist any more. I managed to get out ahead of the axe about 50% of the time.
Wish I'd had someone like Wes to help during the early career days - probably would have helped a lot.
Now, benefits are too good, the job interesting enough, and corporate culture OK enough that I'm just hoping/planning on hanging in 11 or 12 more years and retiring. I'll be 66 or 67 by then, so hopefully will have enough saved and be able to retire and pursue personal interests.
No matter how much you think is enough saved, it isn't.
I wrote long ago, EVERYBODY needs an "exit strategy." My small company clients who are sole proprietorships and giant corporation execs have one factor in common - they rarely have a well-thought out and coordinated exit or succession plan.
The net result usually means some "expert from afar" has to come in at an exorbitant fee to keep the crew from drowning when the captain abandons ship (on purpose or force majeure) both events which might have been softened by a quick and dirty periodic
FMEA (failure mode & effects analysis.)
Complacency has destroyed more careers and companies than any other single factor - a topic for a thread of its own.
Over my career, I have seen a noticeable trend away from long-term employment at the same company, EXCEPT where the individual is building an equity interest in the business. Such equity interest might be actual stock or a profit-sharing fund.
Without that mutual tie of money, the idea of two-way loyalty (and longevity) seems to have disappeared throughout the world, even in Japan, where the jolt to the cultural psyche is still echoing in articles, anecdotes, and statistical surveys.