Employee turnover rate, and what the averages actually mean
An employee turnover rate is separations in a period divided by average headcount, times 100. Federal data put total separations at 3.3 per 100 employees a month across all industries in 2025, about 40 a year. Published turnover rates and attrition rates disagree because each counts a different set of leavers.
What is employee turnover rate?
Employee turnover rate Separations in a chosen period divided by the average headcount over that period, multiplied by 100. Attrition rate, employee churn rate and personnel turnover rate describe the same arithmetic under different names.
A company that averaged 120 employees across a year and said goodbye to 9 of them has a turnover rate of 7.5 for the year. Turnover per employee is not the measure; the denominator is the whole workforce.
The short answer on average turnover rates
- BLS 2025: total separations ran at 3.3 per 100 employees per month across all industries, 3.6 in the private sector.
- Multiply by 12 for a yearly figure. Total private works out near 43 separations per 100 employees a year.
- The 2025 US Mercer Turnover Survey of 2,617 US organisations puts average annual voluntary turnover at 13.0 percent.
- Those two numbers do not contradict each other. One counts every leaver, the other counts resignations only.
Read this first
The BLS figure almost everyone quotes is a monthly rate. Its own table footnote defines it as the sum of 12 monthly separations levels over the sum of 12 monthly employment levels. Repeating 3.6 as an annual turnover rate understates the year roughly 12-fold.
How to calculate a turnover rate
- Fix the period before you count anything A month, a quarter or a rolling 12 months. Whichever you pick, use it again next time. Most reporting errors come from comparing a month against a year. Rolling 12 months to 30 June, recalculated every month.
- Count separations, and write down what counts Federal statisticians split separations into quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations, which covers retirements, transfers to other locations, disability and deaths. Decide which of those belong in your number. Include retirements and you raise your own rate against a voluntary-only benchmark.
- Average the headcount Headcount at the start plus headcount at the end, divided by 2. On a team that grew or shrank sharply, average the 12 month-end figures instead. 110 in January and 130 in December gives an average headcount of 120.
- Divide, then multiply by 100 Separations over average headcount, times 100. That is the whole formula, and it is the same one behind every published rate you will compare against. 9 leavers over an average headcount of 120 is 7.5.
- Annualise, and name the method you used A monthly rate times 12 gives separations per 100 employees a year and matches how federal data annualises. The alternative, 1 minus (1 minus m) to the power of 12, estimates the share of individual people who leave and always lands lower. Say which one you used in the report. They answer different questions.
Employee turnover by industry, 2025
| Industry | Separations per month | Separations per year | Quits per year (voluntary) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 6.1 | 73.2 | 26.4 |
| Accommodation and food services | 5.5 | 66.0 | 50.4 |
| Professional and business services | 4.6 | 55.2 | 27.6 |
| Retail trade | 3.8 | 45.6 | 31.2 |
| Total private | 3.6 | 43.2 | 26.4 |
| Health care and social assistance | 2.9 | 34.8 | 24.0 |
| Manufacturing | 2.4 | 28.8 | 16.8 |
| Government (federal 1.8, state and local 1.4) | 1.5 | 18.0 | 9.6 |
Why two turnover tables can differ by a factor of 4
Federal turnover levels count every separation from the payroll: resignations, layoffs, discharges, retirements, transfers, seasonal endings and deaths. On that basis the private sector ran near 43 separations per 100 employees in 2025. It is a count of exits, not a count of people, so one post filled and vacated 3 times contributes 3.
The 2025 US Mercer Turnover Survey reports 13.0 percent average voluntary turnover from 2,617 US organisations, published in August 2025 and stated as excluding retirees, volunteers and contractors. Resignations only, at organisations that chose to take part in a survey. Same word, a quarter of the population.
LinkedIn's profile-derived table gives a 10.6 percent global average for July 2021 to June 2022, and LinkedIn itself warns the estimates may sit below actual turnover because people update their profiles late. Three credible tables, three definitions. Read the definition before you compare yourself to any of them.
Is your turnover rate good or bad?
Do
- Compare against your own industry row, not a single average attrition rate
- Split voluntary from involuntary exits before you judge either one
- Hold the same definition steady from one period to the next
- Track first-year exits and regrettable exits as their own numbers
Do not
- Setting a monthly published rate beside an annual benchmark
- Reading a very low rate as healthy; it can mean a stalled team
- Drawing conclusions about a team of 12 from a single quarter
- Counting seasonal endings and retirements as resignations
Voluntary, involuntary and regrettable turnover
BLS defines quits as employees who left voluntarily, with the exception of retirements or transfers to other locations. Layoffs and discharges are employer-initiated, and the definition reaches as far as terminations of seasonal employees. Other separations covers retirements, transfers, disability and deaths, which is why quits plus layoffs never adds up to total separations.
The 2025 split is worth holding in mind when you read your own voluntary turnover rate. Quits ran at 2.0 per 100 employees a month across all industries against 1.1 for layoffs and discharges, so voluntary exits outnumbered employer-initiated ones by roughly 2 to 1.
Regrettable attrition is the third cut: voluntary departures you did not want. No publisher benchmarks it, and that is not an oversight. Every company defines regrettable against its own performance ratings, so the number is only comparable to itself. Write the definition down first, then trend it against your own prior periods.
Attrition rate vs turnover rate
Attrition rate The same arithmetic as a turnover rate. Some teams reserve attrition for posts left unfilled after someone leaves, and keep turnover for posts that get backfilled, but the calculation does not change.
Most HR teams and analysts use the 2 words interchangeably, and published attrition rates rarely say which sense they mean. Pick one definition, write it at the top of the report, and apply it every period.
What tenure tells you that a rate does not
BLS Employee Tenure, referenced to January 2024, put median tenure with a current employer at 3.9 years. Public sector workers sat at 6.2 years against 3.5 in the private sector. Leisure and hospitality was lowest at 2.1 years; mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction reached 5.7 and manufacturing 4.9.
That ranking reproduces the turnover ranking from a completely separate survey, which makes it the cheapest sanity check on a rate you have just calculated. It also explains part of the number without any management story attached: median tenure runs 2.7 years for ages 25 to 34 and 9.6 years for ages 55 to 64, so a young team shows a high rate by arithmetic.
What a turnover report should segment
- Voluntary, involuntary and other separations, kept apart
- By department, and by manager where headcount allows it
- By tenure band, with a 90-day cut and a 12-month cut
- By job level, from individual contributor to executive
- Regrettable against non-regrettable, on your own written definition
- Rolling 12 months alongside the single period
- The definition used, printed at the top of the report
A turnover report skeleton you can copy
PERIOD: [month, or rolling 12 months to DD/MM] DEFINITION USED: [which separations are counted; which are excluded] HEADCOUNT Start: [n] End: [n] Average: [(start + end) / 2] SEPARATIONS Quits (voluntary): [n] Layoffs and discharges: [n] Other (retirements, transfers, disability, deaths): [n] Total: [n] RATE Period rate: [separations / average headcount x 100] Annualised: [method named: monthly rate x 12, or 1 - (1 - m)^12] COMPARISON Our industry row: [rate], source [BLS JOLTS table 20, 2025 annual average] Note: published federal rates are monthly SEGMENTS By department: [top 3 by rate] By tenure band: [under 90 days] [90 days to 1 year] [over 1 year] Regrettable: [n of quits], on the definition above WHAT CHANGED SINCE LAST PERIOD [1 or 2 lines. Name the driver, or say it is noise.]
What high turnover means for hiring
Gallup put the cost of replacing one employee at one-half to two times that person's annual salary in its March 2019 analysis, and the same analysis found 52 percent of voluntarily exiting employees said their manager or organisation could have done something to prevent them leaving. Apply the salary multiple to your own bands rather than borrowing a published dollar total.
Then there is the operational half. At the accommodation and food services rate, roughly 66 separations per 100 employees a year on 2025 federal data, an employer is replacing most of its workforce inside the year. Hiring for those roles never closes. The constraint stops being any single requisition and becomes a standing pipeline.
Hiring against continuous turnover
Overnight scouting on an open role, and the morning recap of who the market turned up while nobody was working.
When the same roles reopen every month, the work is finding people repeatedly rather than once. The Cognitive turns a one-line brief into structured filters, split between what the person has done and what their current employer does, and keeps scanning ~900M profiles against your open roles.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the average employee turnover rate?
There are 2 correct answers and they measure different things. BLS put total separations at 3.3 per 100 employees per month across all industries in 2025, which is about 40 per 100 across the year. The 2025 US Mercer Turnover Survey of 2,617 US organisations put average annual voluntary turnover at 13.0 percent. The first counts every exit, the second counts resignations only.
What is employee turnover rate and how do you calculate it?
It is separations in a period divided by the average headcount for that period, multiplied by 100. Average headcount is usually headcount at the start plus headcount at the end, divided by 2. Decide what counts as a separation before you start, because including retirements and seasonal endings changes the answer.
What is a good employee turnover rate?
There is no universal number, and any source offering a single typical attrition rate is hiding the definition. Compare against your own industry row, then split voluntary from involuntary exits, because a rate driven by layoffs means something different from one driven by resignations. A very low average staff turnover rate is not automatically good either; it can signal a team with no movement in it.
What is the difference between attrition rate and turnover rate?
The arithmetic is the same. Some teams reserve attrition for roles left unfilled and keep turnover for roles that get backfilled, but most HR teams and analysts use the words interchangeably. Consistency of method matters far more than the label, so write your definition down and reuse it every period.
Which industries have the highest and lowest turnover rates?
On BLS 2025 annual averages, the high attrition rates sat in arts, entertainment and recreation at 6.1 separations per 100 employees a month and accommodation and food services at 5.5. Those 2 industries make up the leisure and hospitality supersector, which came in at 5.6. The lowest attrition rate was government at 1.5, with finance and insurance at 2.1.
Is the federal employee turnover rate lower than the private sector?
Yes, on 2025 BLS data. Federal government total separations ran at 1.8 per 100 employees a month against 3.6 for total private, and quits at 0.8 against 2.2. BLS Employee Tenure shows the same gap from a different survey: median tenure was 6.2 years in the public sector against 3.5 years in the private sector as of January 2024.
What is regrettable attrition and what is the benchmark?
Regrettable attrition covers voluntary departures you did not want to lose. No published benchmark exists, because every company defines regrettable against its own performance ratings and its own definition of a key role. Define it internally, apply it consistently, and trend it against your own history rather than against an external figure.
What is the current US quit rate?
In the July 2026 JOLTS data released on 1 September 2026, quits were 3.1 million and 1.9 percent for the month, and layoffs and discharges were 1.7 million and 1.0 percent. Those are monthly rates. Retention trends read more clearly from the annual averages than from any single month.
How much does employee turnover cost?
Gallup's March 2019 analysis put the cost of replacing one employee at one-half to two times that employee's annual salary. No verified source publishes a reliable average cost of turnover for an hourly employee, so apply the salary range to your own bands rather than repeating a circulated dollar figure. Add the vacancy cost and the replacement's ramp time.
Where can I find turnover rates for a specific company?
Individual employers rarely publish one, and no verified source gives per-automaker or per-company rates. The closest public figures are sector rows in the BLS data, for example manufacturing at 2.4 separations per 100 employees a month and durable goods at 2.3 in 2025, which is the honest answer for automotive comparisons. Company-level numbers appear only where an employer discloses them in its own ESG or annual report.
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