Employee Turnover Statistics: Rates, Causes and Costs

Sooner or later someone asks whether your turnover is too high. The board sees a resignation spike, a department head blames the market, or finance wants to know what the departures cost. Answering well takes a benchmark you can trust, a rate calculated the same way as that benchmark, and a cost figure you can defend.

This guide gives you all three. It explains the national turnover rates published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the trap in how they are stated, compares industries, shows how to calculate your own rate so the comparison holds, and sets out what surveys say about why people leave and what a departure costs.

DisclosureJake Jorgovan co-founded Alpha Apex Group, which is mentioned in this article.

What is the average employee turnover rate?

For a national U.S. benchmark, the source is the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). In 2025, its annual table for total separations (opens in a new tab) put the rate for all U.S. nonfarm employers at 3.3% a month. Quits (voluntary departures other than retirements) averaged 2.0% (opens in a new tab), and layoffs and discharges averaged 1.1% (opens in a new tab).

Those numbers look low because they are monthly. Each table's footnote explains that the annual rate is the sum of the year's 12 monthly separations as a percent of the sum of the 12 monthly employment levels. That makes it an average monthly rate, and a full year's separations are about 12 times as large.

Multiplied by 12, the same figures give the year's separations as a share of average employment, the same construction as an annual company turnover rate (separations divided by average headcount). On that basis, U.S. separations in 2025 came to roughly 40% of average employment, quits to about 24% and layoffs and discharges to about 13%. Because BLS rounds its rates to one decimal place, multiplying a published rate by 12 can shift the result by up to 0.6 of a percentage point.

Two cautions apply. The national figure covers private and government nonfarm employers, including seasonal and hourly work, so treat it as a reference point and set your own target by industry and role. It also counts separations: a role that turns over twice in a year counts twice.

Employee turnover rates by industry

Industry is where the comparison starts to mean something. Leisure and hospitality separations ran at 5.6% a month in 2025, while government ran at 1.5%. The table gives the three published series for selected major industries, plus this page's annualized estimate for total separations.

The mix matters as much as the total. Retail and hospitality lose people mainly through quits. In construction and professional and business services, layoffs and discharges make up a much larger share, so a high total there reflects employer decisions as much as people choosing to leave.

Federal government separations rose to 1.8% in 2025 from 1.1% in 2024, and the federal total reached 624,000 separations, up from 383,000. The tables do not give a cause.

By region, 2025 separations rates were 3.0% in the Northeast, 3.4% in the South, 3.5% in the Midwest and 3.3% in the West. The monthly JOLTS release also gives rates by establishment size. None of the BLS tables read breaks turnover down by job level or tenure, so your own job-family figures will be a closer comparison than any national row.

How turnover has changed since 2021

Turnover has eased since 2021 and 2022, the highest years in the BLS tables. The total separations rate was 3.9% in both of those years, 3.6% in 2023 and 3.3% in 2024 and 2025. Quits fell further, from 2.8% in 2022 to 2.0% in 2025.

In absolute terms, U.S. workers quit 50.5 million times in 2022 (opens in a new tab) and 38.0 million times in 2025. Total separations fell from 72.3 million to 62.8 million (opens in a new tab) over the same years. Layoffs and discharges barely moved, at 1.0% to 1.1% a month throughout.

If your own turnover has not fallen since 2022, that is worth noticing: the national quit rate has dropped by more than a quarter over those years. BLS updates the monthly figures in its JOLTS news release (opens in a new tab), and the annual tables are revised once a year for BLS's annual employment updates.

How to calculate your turnover rate so the comparison holds

A benchmark helps only if your number is built the same way. JOLTS sets departures in a period against payroll employment and keeps three kinds of departure apart, and your calculation should do the same.

1. 1

   Count separations for the period

   Count everyone who left the payroll during the period. Then sort them into the three groups BLS defines (opens in a new tab): quits (employees who left voluntarily), layoffs and discharges (separations initiated by the employer) and other separations (retirements, transfers to another location, deaths and disability). JOLTS counts a transfer to another location as a separation even within the same company, so keep transfers apart from real exits when you judge retention.

2. 2

   Divide by average headcount

   Average the headcount across the period. For the closest match to BLS, use payroll headcount for the pay period that includes the 12th of each month. Separations divided by average headcount, times 100, is your turnover rate for the period. Do it separately for quits and for layoffs and discharges.

3. 3

   Put it on the same time basis as the benchmark

   The annual tables show average monthly rates for a calendar year, so compare your calendar-year rate with the matching industry figure multiplied by 12. Set an annual company rate of 30% against the monthly all-industry rate and it looks about nine times the national figure; against the annualized national figure, it is below it.

4. 4

   Keep retirements out of voluntary turnover

   BLS counts retirements as other separations, a group kept apart from quits. A company that counts them as voluntary turnover will look worse than the national quit rate, and part of the gap will be retirements rather than people choosing to leave.

5. 5

   Segment before you conclude

   Break the rate down by department, role, manager and length of service. A company-wide average can hide one team with very high turnover. Estimate costs by role as well, because the team that loses the most people is not always the most expensive one.

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The approach described in this article, shown as a visual guide.

New-hire turnover needs its own measure, because the BLS tables read give no national rate for it. Choose a hiring cohort, such as everyone hired in one quarter, and a follow-up window, such as 90 days or a year. Once every hire in the cohort has passed that window, divide the departures within it by the number hired. Track the result by hiring source and by manager, then use departure reasons to see whether the pattern points to hiring fit or to onboarding.

The closest national figure is a share of the workforce, which is a different measure from a leaving rate. In January 2026, 20.6% of wage and salary workers (opens in a new tab) had been with their employer for a year or less, down from 22.2% in January 2024. BLS notes the group includes new hires, people who found a new job after losing one and people who changed employers voluntarily.

Employee tenure by age, sector and industry

Tenure measures how long current employees have been with their employer. These medians describe time already served, not how long a new hire will stay. The BLS survey of January 2026 put median tenure for wage and salary workers at 4.1 years, up from 3.9 years in January 2024. Median tenure was 4.3 years for men and 4.0 years for women.

Age is one factor in the differences. BLS points out that government workers tend to be older than private-sector workers, and that workers in the highest-tenure industries tend to be older than those in leisure and hospitality. Among workers ages 60 to 64, 52.6% had been with their employer for 10 years or more, against 20.3% of those ages 35 to 39.

Younger workers show shorter median tenure, so compare your own figures with these medians within age bands before drawing conclusions about retention.

Why employees leave

Surveys of people who have left point in a consistent direction: pay matters, but so does how people are managed and whether they can see a future.

In a Pew Research Center survey (opens in a new tab) of 965 U.S. adults who quit a job in 2021, the most common reasons were low pay (63%), no opportunities for advancement (63%) and feeling disrespected at work (57%). Among those with a child under 18, 48% cited child care issues. Lack of flexibility over when to work (45%) and not having good benefits (43%) followed. The survey ran in February 2022, when quit rates were at the top of the five years in the BLS tables, so treat it as a picture of that period.

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Among U.S. adults who voluntarily left a job in 2021, low pay and limited advancement were the most commonly reported reasons. The chart separates major and minor reasons; respondents could name several. Childcare figures apply only to respondents with children under 18 at home.pewresearch.org (opens in a new tab)

Gallup asked a different question: could the departure have been prevented? In a study of 717 U.S. employees (opens in a new tab) who had voluntarily left a job in the previous 12 months and were working for a different employer, surveyed in November 2023, 42% said their manager or organization could have done something to keep them.

Gallup coded the open-ended answers about what could have kept people from a wider group of 1,336 former employees, including people who had left more than a year earlier. Among respondents who said their departure could have been prevented, pay and benefits made up 30% of the actions named. Most of the rest concerned how people were managed day to day, such as more positive interactions with their manager (21%), fixing frustrating organizational issues (13%), career advancement (11%) and staffing or workload (9%).

The same study found that 45% of voluntary leavers said no manager or leader had proactively discussed their job satisfaction, performance or future with the organization in the three months before they left. That is the most actionable figure on this page: it describes a conversation that did not happen.

Openness to leaving is not the same as leaving

Gallup also tracks how many employees are looking: 52% of U.S. employees were watching for or actively seeking a new job (opens in a new tab) in May 2026. Globally, Gallup's 2025 World Poll put the figure at 50%.

Set that beside the BLS data: the national quit rate in 2025 was the lowest of the five years in the BLS tables, while about half of employees said they were open to leaving. One counts departures; the other measures intent. Neither source explains the gap, so don't read one as a forecast of the other. In your own data, an engagement survey that shows many people looking is an early warning, and the quit rate tells you whether it turned into departures.

What does employee turnover cost?

There is no single replacement cost, and the published estimates differ by role and by what they count.

These estimates cover different roles and periods, and the sources count different things. The Center for American Progress median leaves out executives and physicians; its case studies ranged from 5.8% to 213% of salary, with senior and highly paid roles at the top. The median also comes from older case studies, and only 2 of the 11 papers it reviewed counted indirect costs such as lost productivity, extra work for colleagues during a vacancy, and lost clients and institutional knowledge. Below the executive level the estimates still differ: a 21% median in that review against Gallup's 40% for frontline employees.

At the national level, Gallup estimates that voluntary turnover costs U.S. businesses about $1 trillion a year.

A hypothetical example shows why the method matters for a business case. A company that loses 50 frontline employees a year at an average salary of $60,000 would put the cost at about $630,000 using the 21% median, or $1.2 million using Gallup's 40% for frontline roles. A finance team will ask which one you used and why, so build your own figure.

Count only costs the departure caused, leave out ordinary costs that would have occurred anyway, and avoid counting the same lost output twice.

Using the figures to make the case for retention work

The figures above give you a benchmark and a cost. The case for action comes from your own data: which teams lose people, how early, and whether the people leaving are the ones you most wanted to keep.

Two checks come first. For departures in the first year, look at how the role was defined and how the person was brought in. In a 2020 episode on hiring, I argued that leaders should define what a new hire needs to achieve in the first 90 days, then hand over the work in phases: shadowing, working with oversight, working with weekly check-ins, and reporting results. Without clear success criteria, new hires can become frustrated because they do not know what is expected of them.

For people already in the role, Gallup's finding that 45% of voluntary leavers said no manager or leader had raised their satisfaction, performance or future with them in their last three months suggests a simple test: does every manager have that conversation, on a regular schedule, with the people they would most hate to lose? Exit interviews tell you why people went. Those conversations can still change the outcome. Gallup suggests they cover compensation and career advancement, the relationship with the manager, and organizational and workload barriers.

If your exit data keeps naming pay, advancement or scheduling, make those issues part of the retention proposal and cost the changes. This guide to evaluating a benefits program covers one part of that review.

Then review turnover by team every quarter: recalculate the trailing 12-month rate and set it against the annualized industry figure, keeping the benchmark year visible.

What would your turnover rate look like if you counted only the departures you would have prevented?