Employee Turnover Statistics (2026)
In August 2026, 3.2% of US workers separated from their employer and 1.9% quit, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Across calendar 2025, there were 62.8 million separations: 38.0 million quits, 21.2 million layoffs and discharges, and the rest retirements, deaths and transfers. Quits fell by 1.3 million from 2024. Layoffs rose by 1.2 million. The headline turnover rate has not moved, but what is inside it has.
The pages that rank for this question multiply monthly rates by twelve and call the result a BLS annual turnover rate, quote a 2019 cost estimate as current, and present LinkedIn's 2022 industry table as this year's. This page uses the BLS annual tables, the September 2026 tenure release, the 2026 hospital retention report and Gallup's 2024 exit study, and states the unit of every rate. It covers the national picture, industry rates, voluntary against involuntary, cost, why people leave, tenure and first-year turnover, and what reduces it.
How high is US turnover in 2026?
The BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey is the only national measure, and it reports monthly rates. In the August 2026 release, published 29 September, total separations were 5.1 million, a rate of 3.2%; quits were 3.1 million, a rate of 1.9%; layoffs and discharges were 1.6 million, a rate of 1.0%. Hires were 5.2 million, a rate of 3.3%, and job openings 7.1 million. The quits rate was 2.0% in August 2025. These are preliminary figures and will be revised in the November release.
The annual picture comes from the March 2026 annual summary. In 2025 there were 62.8 million total separations, down 251,000 from 2024, for an annual average separations rate of 3.3%, unchanged. Quits were 38.0 million, 60.6% of separations. Layoffs and discharges were 21.2 million, 33.8%. Hires were 63.0 million, down 1.5 million.
| Year | Total separations rate | Quits rate | Quits (thousands) | Layoffs and discharges (thousands) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3.9% | 2.7% | 47,558 | 17,104 |
| 2022 | 3.9% | 2.8% | 50,503 | 17,644 |
| 2023 | 3.6% | 2.4% | 44,205 | 19,847 |
| 2024 | 3.3% | 2.1% | 39,285 | 20,014 |
| 2025 | 3.3% | 2.0% | 38,029 | 21,239 |
Those are annual averages from BLS Table 20 and Table 22, not seasonally adjusted. Quits have fallen for three years in a row and are a quarter below the 2022 peak. Layoffs have risen for four. ADP's payroll data tell the same story from a different angle: its October 2025 analysis put turnover at 5.8% in August 2025, unchanged for two years and the lowest in the nine years ADP has tracked it, and found the pay premium for changing jobs had shrunk to 2.6 points, from 7.7 points in August 2022. The market, not retention programs, has done most of the work of keeping people in place.
Turnover by industry
Industry rates vary by a factor of four. The 2025 annual averages from BLS Tables 20 and 22:
| Industry | Total separations rate | Quits rate |
|---|---|---|
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 6.1% | 2.2% |
| Leisure and hospitality | 5.6% | 3.9% |
| Accommodation and food services | 5.5% | 4.2% |
| Professional and business services | 4.6% | 2.3% |
| Construction | 4.0% | 1.8% |
| Transportation, warehousing and utilities | 4.0% | 2.2% |
| Retail trade | 3.8% | 2.6% |
| Other services | 3.3% | 2.2% |
| Health care and social assistance | 2.9% | 2.0% |
| Information | 2.8% | 1.3% |
| Real estate | 2.6% | 1.6% |
| Manufacturing | 2.4% | 1.4% |
| Wholesale trade | 2.3% | 1.4% |
| Private educational services | 2.2% | 1.4% |
| Finance and insurance | 2.1% | 1.3% |
| Government | 1.5% | 0.8% |
Two movements inside the table matter. Federal government separations rose from 1.1% in 2024 to 1.8% in 2025, with 624,000 separations against 383,000 the year before. And professional and business services recorded 5.5 million layoffs and discharges in 2025, up from 4.75 million, the largest absolute increase of any sector. Arts, entertainment and recreation had the highest layoff rate at 3.8%, up from 3.2%.
Hospitals publish their own figures. NSI Nursing Solutions' 2026 retention report, covering 527 hospitals and 965,886 workers, put hospital turnover at 18.5% for 2025, with staff RN turnover at 17.6%, up from 16.4% in 2024 after three years of decline from a 27.1% peak in 2021. The average hospital turned over 106% of its workforce in five years. Our nurse burnout statistics page covers what sits behind that.
Quits against layoffs
In 2025, quits were 60.6% of separations and layoffs and discharges 33.8%, with the balance in "other separations," which BLS defines as retirements, deaths, disability and transfers to other locations. The composition shifted: quits fell 1.3 million while layoffs rose 1.2 million, so the share of separations that employees initiated dropped even though the total barely changed.
Employer exit-interview data put involuntary exits lower, because they count only exits the company records as its own decision. Work Institute's 2025 Retention Report, built from 14,215 exit interviews at more than 175 US companies in 2024, classified 6.6% of exits as involuntary, 7.4% as retirement and 8.4% as relocation. In hospitals, NSI found 94.9% of separations were voluntary.
What replacing an employee costs
The figure that circulates most, that replacing an employee costs one and a half to two times their salary, has no primary source for the average worker. Three estimates do.
21% of annual salary. The Center for American Progress reviewed 30 case studies from 11 research papers in 2012 and found a median replacement cost of 21% of annual salary across all positions except executives and physicians. For jobs paying $50,000 or less it was 20%; for jobs under $30,000, 16%. The full range ran from 5.8% to 213%, with the top end reserved for executives and highly specialized roles. It is a 2012 review of studies published between 1992 and 2007, and it remains the only multi-study estimate available.
40%, 80% and 200% of salary. Gallup's 2024 estimate is tiered: about 40% of salary for frontline employees, 80% for technical professionals and 200% for leaders and managers. Gallup's 2019 version, "one half to two times annual salary," is the origin of the 1.5 to 2 times claim, which compresses a range whose low end is 50%. Gallup's accompanying estimate that voluntary turnover costs US businesses about $1 trillion a year was published in March 2019 and built on 2017 turnover and wage data.
33% of base wages. Work Institute's estimate, with no published method, works out to at least $16,500 for a $50,000 earner. The same report found only 11% of employers strongly agree they consistently track turnover costs. For a bedside nurse, NSI puts the average cost at $60,090, and each percentage point of RN turnover at about $295,000 a year for the average hospital.
Why people leave, and how much is preventable
Gallup asked 717 US employees who had voluntarily left a job in the previous year, in November 2023, whether their manager or organization could have done something to keep them. Forty-two percent said yes. Forty-five percent said no manager or leader had proactively discussed their satisfaction, performance or future in the three months before they left, and 36% did not talk to anyone before deciding to resign. Among those who said the exit was preventable, the action that would have kept them was additional compensation or benefits for 30%, positive interactions with their manager for 21%, addressing organisational issues for 13%, career advancement for 11%, staffing and workload for 9% and fewer negative manager interactions for 8%. Gallup's 2019 version of the first question produced 52%, which is the figure most pages still use.
Work Institute's exit interviews code the stated reason. For 2024 leavers: career development 18.9%, health and family 12.4%, work-life balance 11.9%, management 9.7%, relocation 8.4%, total rewards 8.2%, job characteristics 8.0%, retirement 7.4%, environment 7.0%, involuntary 6.6%. Management-attributed exits reached a six-year high, with the "professional behavior" sub-category rising from 2.4% to 6.0% since 2022. Pay and benefits, at 8.2%, continued to decline as a stated reason, which the report titles "Pay Is a Signal, Not a Solution." The report gives its preventable share as 63% in the executive summary and 76.3% in the body; the seven categories it labels preventable sum to 76.1%. Roughly three quarters is the defensible reading.
Whether people are looking is a separate measure. Gallup's fourth-quarter 2025 data from 22,368 workers found 51% actively looking for a new job or watching for openings, while 72% said it was a bad time to find a quality job. People are watching and not moving, which is what a 1.9% quits rate and a 51% watching rate together mean. Our employee engagement statistics page covers the detachment behind it.
Tenure and first-year turnover
Median tenure with the current employer was 4.1 years in January 2026, up from 3.9 years in January 2024, according to the BLS September 2026 tenure release. Men were at 4.3 years and women at 4.0. Workers aged 25 to 34 had a median of 3.0 years and those 55 to 64 had 9.6. Public sector tenure was 5.6 years against 3.9 in the private sector. The share of workers who had been with their employer 12 months or less fell from 22.2% to 20.6%.
No BLS series measures first-year turnover directly. Work Institute attributes roughly 40% of all turnover to first-year employees, based on its client exit data, and NSI's hospital data are more precise: 29.5% of new hires left within a year in 2025, first-year employees accounted for 35.6% of all hospital turnover, and 56.8% of leavers had less than two years' service. Among RNs, 22.7% of new hires left within a year. Our onboarding statistics page covers the first 90 days.
What reduces turnover
The largest body of evidence is Gallup's Q12 meta-analysis of 183,806 business units. Business units in the top quartile of engagement had 21% lower turnover than bottom-quartile units in high-turnover organizations, defined as above 40% annualized, and 51% lower turnover in low-turnover organizations. Absenteeism was 78% lower.
The intervention window is specific. Gallup's 45% figure, the share of leavers who had no proactive conversation with a manager in their last three months, is the gap most organizations can close without spending money. Work Institute's leader survey found only 24% of leaders strongly agree their managers are equipped, and only 8% strongly agree their exit interviews reveal the true reasons people quit. Hospitals set a 2.5-point turnover reduction goal for 2026 after missing the 2.6-point goal they set for 2025; 27.6% of hospitals have no measurable goal at all. Our employee retention strategies guide covers what the evidence supports.
Monthly rates, annual rates and the numbers that are neither
BLS publishes monthly rates and annual averages. The annual average is total separations across the year divided by average employment, which is why 62.8 million separations against roughly 159 million jobs gives 3.3%, not 39%. Figures such as "57.3% annual turnover" come from summing monthly rates, and they are not BLS figures. Mercer's survey average of 13.0% voluntary turnover and SHRM's benchmarks measure something different again, voluntary separations over average headcount among surveyed employers, and the SHRM figures of 15% median and 30% average that still circulate are from 2021. When a page gives one turnover rate without saying which of these it is, it is not telling you anything.
Key takeaways
- US total separations ran at 3.2% a month in August 2026 and 3.3% as a 2025 annual average. The quits rate fell to 2.0% in 2025 from 2.8% in 2022.
- Quits fell 1.3 million to 38.0 million in 2025 while layoffs rose 1.2 million to 21.2 million. Quits were 60.6% of separations, layoffs 33.8%.
- Leisure and hospitality has the highest separations rate at 5.6%, government the lowest at 1.5%. Federal government separations rose from 1.1% to 1.8%.
- The evidence-based median replacement cost is 21% of salary. Gallup's tiered estimate is 40% for frontline, 80% for technical and 200% for leaders. The 1.5 to 2 times figure has no primary source.
- 42% of leavers say their exit was preventable, and 45% had no conversation about their future in their last three months, per Gallup's 2024 study.
- Career development is the top coded reason for leaving at 18.9%. Pay and benefits is 8.2% and declining. Management-attributed exits hit a six-year high.
- Median tenure rose to 4.1 years in January 2026. Roughly 40% of turnover happens in the first year; in hospitals, 29.5% of new hires left within twelve months.
- Annual turnover rates above 50% are monthly rates multiplied by twelve, not BLS figures.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average employee turnover rate in the US in 2026?
BLS measures separations monthly. In August 2026, 3.2% of workers separated from their employer and 1.9% quit. For calendar 2025, the annual average total separations rate was 3.3% and there were 62.8 million separations, of which 38.0 million were quits.
Is employee turnover going up or down?
Down for quits and up for layoffs. Annual quits fell by 1.3 million to 38.0 million in 2025 while layoffs and discharges rose 1.2 million to 21.2 million. The quits rate fell from 2.8% in 2022 to 2.0% in 2025.
Which industry has the highest turnover?
Leisure and hospitality, with a 2025 annual average separations rate of 5.6% and a quits rate of 3.9%. Accommodation and food services has the highest quits rate at 4.2%. Government is lowest at 1.5% separations and 0.8% quits.
What percentage of turnover is voluntary?
Quits were 60.6% of all separations in 2025 and layoffs and discharges 33.8%, with the rest retirements, deaths and transfers. In hospitals, 94.9% of separations were voluntary according to NSI's 2026 report.
How much does it cost to replace an employee?
The best multi-study estimate is a median of about 21% of annual salary, from the Center for American Progress's 2012 review of 30 case studies. Gallup's 2024 estimate is tiered: roughly 40% of salary for frontline staff, 80% for technical professionals and about 200% for leaders and managers.
Why do employees quit?
In Work Institute's 2024 exit interviews the top coded reasons were career development at 18.9%, health and family at 12.4%, work-life balance at 11.9% and management at 9.7%. Pay and benefits was 8.2%. Gallup found 42% of leavers said their manager or organization could have prevented the exit.
How long does the average employee stay at a job?
Median tenure with the current employer was 4.1 years in January 2026, per BLS. Workers aged 25 to 34 had a median of 3.0 years and those 55 to 64 had 9.6. About 20.6% of workers had been with their employer 12 months or less.
What percentage of new hires leave in the first year?
Work Institute attributes roughly 40% of all turnover to first-year employees. In hospitals, 29.5% of new hires left within a year in 2025 and first-year employees accounted for 35.6% of turnover. BLS does not measure first-year turnover directly; the nearest figure is the 20.6% of workers with under a year of tenure.