CURRITUCK — Just under half of the workers employed by Currituck County are not staying with their jobs long enough to reap some of the county’s long-term benefits, according to the county’s human relations director.
“Forty-nine percent of our employees have less than five years of tenure,” said Melissa Futrell. “The average age of employees with less than five years is 38. ... (Also) some of our benefits are more long term in nature, meaning that they really don’t feel the impact until you’ve been with us for five years.”
Futrell was speaking during her presentation on county employment trends before the Currituck commissioners at this week’s work session.
According to Futrell, the current number of Currituck employees is 430. Of those, 359 are non-exempt workers whose overall average annual salary is $46,000. The remaining 71 employees are exempt workers who earn an overall average salary of $77,000.
Non-exempt employees are typically paid an hourly rate and are eligible for rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act, such as overtime pay for working more than 40 hours in a week. Exempt employees are typically salaried workers who often hold supervisory and administrative positions. They are not eligible for overtime pay.
Futrell presented employee turnover data from the start of the 2023-24 fiscal year to the current date.
“So, this is fiscal year to date, we have seen 78 resignations,” she said. “Of those 78, 19 were retirements. Eight of those retirements were exempt status and 11 were non-exempt.”
She next reviewed the number of voluntary resignations, of which there were 56.
“Of those 56, 51 were non-exempt status,” she said. “Then we further delve into that number and say, OK, by pay grade, how many fell in what distribution. Of those 51, 38 resignations were grades 68 or lower. That’s 75% of those non-exempt resignations.
“We had three involuntary (resignations) and all of those were non-exempt,” Futrell said.
And of those 56 voluntary resignations, 84% were employees who had less than five years of employment, according to the director.
The average age of all county employees is 44 and the average tenure among all workers is seven years, Futrell said.
Her presentation broke down employee data by workers’ career stages, starting with young employees with limited work experience.
“They come in with limited to no savings,” Futrell said. “They’re fresh to the workforce, meaning they probably need as much as they can get right now.”
The next group is more established and represents 102 workers, or 26% of all staff.
“They’re starting to acquire some debt but they’re still learning to manage bills,” Futrell said. “Very interesting.”
The mid-career stage comprises 94 employees.
“They’re focusing maybe on their first home purchase,” the director said. “They’ve got some interesting work-life balance needs, child dependent needs.”
The late-career cohort have child and adult dependent needs, and the last group, pre-retirement, is focused on maintaining a steady income as they approach retirement, Futrell said.
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