Turmoil helps deliver job security for CEOs

Tough economic times have not yet translated into a spike in sackings of chief executives of the world's biggest companies.

In spite of financial turmoil and sharp falls in corporate profitability, top job turnover rose only slightly worldwide in 2008, according to a Booz & Company study due to be released today.

Overall, 361 of the world's 2,500 largest public companies, or 14.4 per cent, replaced their chief executive in 2008, up slightly from 347, or 13.8 per cent, in 2007.

But turnover in North America and Europe, the epicentre of the global downturn, declined slightly to 14.8 per cent and 15.1 per cent respectively.

Chief executive tenure, at an average of 7.9 years on the job, is now at its longest, at least in North America, since 2000. Among the newly appointed chiefs, 20 per cent had prior experience at the top, double the average for the prior 11 years.

Turnover in Asia, which has historically been lower than in the west, rose from 10.6 per cent in 2007 to 16.4 in 2008 in Japan and from 9.2 per cent to 13 per cent in the rest of Asia.