Employee Turnover and Retention Statistics 2026

How to read this page: every figure names its source and year. Survey results, official statistics, vendor claims and figures from our own directory are labeled separately, because they are not equally reliable.

How high is employee turnover in the U.S. and Europe?

The U.S. publishes monthly turnover data through BLS JOLTS. Europe has no single turnover rate, so tenure data and Gallup's intent-to-leave measure fill the gap. JOLTS rates are monthly averages, not annual percentages.

1. Total U.S. separations were 62.8 million in 2025, down 251,000 from 2024, and the average monthly total separations rate was 3.3%, unchanged from 2024.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
2. Quits fell by 1.3 million to 38.0 million in 2025 (an average monthly quits rate of 2.0%) and made up 60.6% of all separations.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
3. Layoffs and discharges rose by 1.2 million to 21.2 million in 2025 and made up 33.8% of separations.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
4. Hires totaled 63.0 million in 2025, down 1.5 million from 2024, with the average monthly hires rate falling from 3.4% to 3.3%.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
5. 50% of employees worldwide were watching for or actively seeking a new job in 2025 (Gallup World Poll), and 53% of U.S. employees were open to leaving their organization in August 2026.Source: Gallup, Employee Retention and Attraction indicator, 2025Survey
6. Gallup's 2024 World Poll found 30% of employees in Europe open to leaving, against 72% in sub-Saharan Africa.Source: Gallup, Employee Retention and Attraction indicator, 2024Survey

Which industries have the highest turnover?

BLS annual 2025 quits rates (average monthly share of employment) show how much turnover varies by sector. For measures that help lower it, see our guide to preventing team burnout.

1. Accommodation and food services had the highest average monthly quits rate in 2025 at 4.2%, and leisure and hospitality overall was at 3.9%.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
2. Retail trade had a 2.6% quits rate in 2025, professional and business services 2.3% and health care and social assistance 2.0%.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
3. Finance and insurance (1.3%), information (1.3%) and manufacturing (1.4%) had some of the lowest private-sector quits rates in 2025.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
4. Government had the lowest quits rate in 2025 at 0.8%, the same for federal and for state and local government.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics
5. Arts, entertainment and recreation had the highest total separations rate in 2025 at 6.1%, followed by leisure and hospitality at 5.6%.Source: BLS, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, annual 2025, 2025Official statistics

How long do employees stay, and how many leave in the first year?

Tenure data show the share of the workforce that is new to its employer. No official source reports a first-year attrition rate for new hires, so the share with one year of tenure or less is the closest public measure.

1. Median employee tenure in the U.S. was 4.1 years in January 2026, up from 3.9 years in January 2024.Source: BLS, Employee Tenure in 2026, 2026Official statistics
2. 20.6% of U.S. workers had one year or less of tenure in January 2026, down from 22.2% in January 2024.Source: BLS, Employee Tenure in 2026, 2026Official statistics
3. Median tenure in January 2026 was 3.0 years for ages 25 to 34 and 9.6 years for ages 55 to 64, and 74.1% of workers aged 16 to 19 had one year or less.Source: BLS, Employee Tenure in 2026, 2026Official statistics
4. Median tenure was 5.0 years in financial activities but 2.4 years in leisure and hospitality, and 5.6 years in the public sector against 3.9 in the private sector, in January 2026.Source: BLS, Employee Tenure in 2026, 2026Official statistics
5. 13.3% of employed people aged 15 to 64 in the EU had held their current job for less than 12 months in 2024, while 59.1% had been in it for five years or more.Source: Eurostat, Employed persons by job tenure (lfsa_egad), 2024Official statistics
6. 44.5% of employed EU residents aged 15 to 24 had held their current job for less than 12 months in 2024, against 6.3% for five years or more.Source: Eurostat, Employed persons by job tenure (lfsa_egad), 2024Official statistics
7. Share of employees with under 12 months in their job in 2024: Netherlands 18.8%, Spain 17.4%, France 15.3%, Germany 14.9% and Italy 9.4%.Source: Eurostat, Employed persons by job tenure (lfsa_egad), 2024Official statistics
8. Share of employees with five years or more in their job in 2024: Italy 66.1%, Germany 56.9%, Spain 56.8%, France 56.6% and the Netherlands 47.3%.Source: Eurostat, Employed persons by job tenure (lfsa_egad), 2024Official statistics

What does employee turnover cost?

Cost estimates vary by role and method. Gallup's figures are ranges, not measurements for a particular company. Our HR software category lists tools that help track turnover.

1. Gallup estimates that replacing an individual employee costs one-half to two times the employee's annual salary, which it calls a conservative estimate.Source: Gallup, This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion, 2019Survey
2. Gallup's worked example: a 100-person organization with an average salary of $50,000 could face roughly $660,000 to $2.6 million a year in turnover and replacement costs.Source: Gallup, This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion, 2019Survey
3. Gallup puts replacement cost at about 200% of salary for leaders and managers, about 80% for technical roles and about 40% for frontline workers, excluding morale and knowledge losses.Source: Gallup and Workhuman, Employee recognition research (2024), 2024Survey
4. Gallup estimates that voluntary turnover costs U.S. businesses about $1 trillion a year.Source: Gallup, This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion, 2019Survey
5. Average cost per hire was $5,475 for nonexecutive roles and $35,879 for executives in SHRM's 2025 benchmarking, based on 2,371 member responses.Source: SHRM, 2025 Benchmarking Reports press release, 2025Survey

Why do people leave their jobs?

Pay is a common but rarely the only reason. Several surveys point to manager relationships, growth, flexibility and wellbeing. See our guides on one-on-one meetings and psychological safety at work.

1. Among U.S. adults who quit a job in 2021, 63% cited low pay, 63% cited no opportunities for advancement and 57% cited feeling disrespected at work (Pew, 965 quitters).Source: Pew Research Center, Majority of workers who quit a job in 2021 cite low pay, no opportunities for advancement (2022), 2022Survey
2. 45% of 2021 U.S. quitters cited lack of flexibility in choosing work hours, 43% lack of good benefits and 39% working too many hours (Pew).Source: Pew Research Center, Majority of workers who quit a job in 2021 cite low pay, no opportunities for advancement (2022), 2022Survey
3. 37% of U.S. adults under 30 said they had quit a job in 2021, compared with 17% of those aged 30 to 49, 9% of those aged 50 to 64 and 5% of those 65 and older (Pew).Source: Pew Research Center, Majority of workers who quit a job in 2021 cite low pay, no opportunities for advancement (2022), 2022Survey
4. In a 2024 Gallup analysis of U.S. exits, pay and benefits was the most common single reason at 16%, while engagement and culture themes accounted for 37% and wellbeing and work-life balance for 31%.Source: Gallup, Employee Retention and Attraction indicator, 2024Survey
5. 60% of U.S. employees called work-life balance and wellbeing very important in a next job in 2025, ahead of stability (57%), better pay or benefits (53%) and doing what they do best (48%).Source: Gallup, Employee Retention and Attraction indicator, 2025Survey
6. 34% of UK workers whose mental health was harmed by work planned to leave within a year, against 14% of those with good wellbeing (CIPD Good Work Index 2025).Source: CIPD Good Work Index 2025, reported by Workplace Journal, 2025Survey
7. 31% of Gen Z and 17% of millennial respondents in Deloitte's 2025 survey of more than 23,000 younger workers in 44 countries planned to change employers within two years.Source: Deloitte Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025, reported by Journal of Accountancy, 2025Survey
8. Gallup found in 2018 that burned-out employees had roughly three times the chance of leaving their current employer (nearly 7,500 full-time U.S. employees).Source: Gallup, Millennials Are Burning Out, 2018Survey
9. 52% of voluntarily exiting employees said their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving.Source: Gallup, This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion, 2019Survey
10. 51% of exiting employees said that in the three months before they left, neither their manager nor any other leader had talked with them about their job satisfaction or future.Source: Gallup, This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion, 2019Survey

Which retention actions have evidence behind them?

Most evidence is correlational: it shows that groups with certain practices lose fewer people, not that the practice alone caused it. Related reading: employee recognition and employee engagement statistics, plus our companion page on HR technology statistics.

1. Business units in the top quartile of engagement had 21% lower turnover in high-turnover organizations and 51% lower turnover in low-turnover organizations than bottom-quartile units (Gallup 2024 meta-analysis of 183,806 units in 347 organizations).Source: Gallup, Q12 meta-analysis (2024), 2024Study
2. Employees who received high-quality recognition were 45% less likely to have changed organizations two years later (Gallup and Workhuman, nearly 3,500 employees tracked 2022 to 2024).Source: Gallup and Workhuman, Employee recognition research (2024), 2024Study
3. Employees whose recognition met at least four of Gallup's five pillars were 65% less likely to be looking or watching for another job.Source: Gallup and Workhuman, Employee recognition research (2024), 2024Survey
4. Only 22% of U.S. employees said in 2024 that they get the right amount of recognition, and 55% received none or recognition meeting none of the five pillars.Source: Gallup and Workhuman, Employee recognition research (2024), 2024Survey
5. Employees who had advanced internally by the two-year mark were almost 20% more likely to stay than those who had not (LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2023).Source: LinkedIn, career pathing and employee retention (Workplace Learning Report 2023), 2023Survey
6. Only 15% of employees said their organization had encouraged them to move to a new role, and only 14% said it had encouraged them to build a career development plan (LinkedIn, 2023).Source: LinkedIn, career pathing and employee retention (Workplace Learning Report 2023), 2023Survey

Methodology

We used sources we opened ourselves: BLS JOLTS and Employee Tenure releases, Eurostat's EU Labour Force Survey tenure table (pulled from the Eurostat database), Gallup, Pew Research Center, SHRM, CIPD, Deloitte and LinkedIn. Each fact gives the data year, or the publication year when fieldwork dates are not stated, and is labeled survey, study, official or vendor-claim.

Limits: JOLTS rates are monthly averages for the U.S. and cannot be compared directly with annual turnover rates from HR benchmarks. Eurostat tenure shares measure how long current employees have been in their job, not how many people left. Some figures are older (Gallup's cost estimates are from 2019, Pew's reasons for quitting cover 2021) and may not reflect today's labor market.

Replacement cost ranges are rules of thumb. CIPD and Deloitte figures come from press coverage of the reports. We excluded widely repeated first-year attrition percentages because we could not confirm them on a primary publisher's page.

For related data see employee engagement statistics and HR technology statistics. Our approach is described on the editorial process page.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average employee turnover rate?

It depends on the measure. In the U.S., BLS JOLTS reported an average monthly quits rate of 2.0% and total separations rate of 3.3% for 2025, with 38.0 million quits in the year. Europe has no single published turnover rate.

Eurostat reports that 13.3% of employed EU residents aged 15 to 64 had been in their job under 12 months in 2024.

Which industries have the highest turnover?

In the U.S. in 2025, accommodation and food services had the highest quits rate at 4.2% per month, followed by leisure and hospitality at 3.9% and retail at 2.6%. Government (0.8%), finance and insurance (1.3%) and information (1.3%) were among the lowest.

How much does it cost to replace an employee?

Gallup estimates one-half to two times annual salary, and about 200% for leaders and managers, 80% for technical roles and 40% for frontline workers. SHRM's 2025 benchmarking found average cost per hire of $5,475 for nonexecutive roles and $35,879 for executives. These are ranges, so treat them as planning estimates.

Why do employees quit?

Pew found that 63% of 2021 U.S. quitters cited low pay and 63% no opportunities for advancement, while 57% felt disrespected. Gallup's 2024 analysis found that culture and engagement themes made up 37% of reasons and wellbeing 31%, against 16% for pay and benefits. Gallup also found that 52% of leavers said the exit could have been prevented.

What helps retain employees?

Evidence points to engagement, recognition and growth. Gallup found 21% to 51% lower turnover in top-quartile engagement units, and 45% lower odds of changing organizations for employees with high-quality recognition. LinkedIn data links internal advancement to being almost 20% more likely to stay.

See our performance management software overview for tools.