Predicting early exits from royal naval services

A number of factors place constraints on the management of Naval manpower, which are mainly attributed to its hierarchal administrative structure. This structure is very different from most other organisations. The main differences are: the single point of entry at the lowest cadre, the long lead time for training, the skill specialisation and the job for life, if wanted. To maintain the right skill mix, manpower retention has recently become one of major management goals. In this paper we test how the internal job related factors, external labour market conditions, and fluctuations in the macro economy affect the premature voluntary exits of Officers and Ratings. This paper reports predictions of premature (voluntary) employment exits, with the use of a unique Naval administrative longitudinal data set. A group as well as individual level predictions of early exits, using econometric techniques of duration analyses and logistic regression are compared. This paper is one of the first attempts to thoroughly investigate early exits, and provides relevant insights and predictions of early exits for the manpower retention policy in the Royal Navy.