Quarterly Executive Turnover Continues to Decline While Overall Unemployment Remains High

October 13, 2010

Executive turnover has continued to decline throughout the economic and financial crisis and even as the recession ended according to the official proclamation by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Liberum Research’s latest quarterly turnover numbers for CEOs, CFOs, Board of Directors and C-level executives (defined to include CEOs, board of directors, CFOs, COOs, down to VP level) continued to show a drop in turnover for all key categories for the third quarter of 2010. The declining trend in executive turnover has continued since the first quarter of 2008 for all key executive turnover categories (see the CEO, CFO and C-level graphs below for quarterly turnover comparisons). While the first three quarters of 2010 continued to show significant declines in executive turnover, particularly when compared with the first, second and third quarters of 2009, we are beginning to see the overall executive turnover declines slowing when the quarterly figures are compared with each previous quarter of 2010.

Third quarter 2010 CEO changes dropped 27%, CFO changes dropped 8% and overall C-level changes for the third quarter dropped 32% respectively when compared with the third quarter totals for 2009.

The drop in changes for the third quarter of 2010 was much smaller when compared with the second quarter totals for 2010 – the drop was 21% for CEOs, 7% for CFOs and 6% for overall C-level changes.

While monthly executive turnover numbers have been smaller since early 2008, the investment opportunities they represent are still quite significant. Below Liberum put together three graphs representing the total executive related changes (CEOs, CFOs and C-level changes) by quarter for 2005 through the third quarter of 2010.

Total CEO Quarterly Changes by Years 2005 - 2010 - http://sheet.zoho.com