Employee Turnover Statistics 2026: BLS Quit and Separation Rates by Industry

The US employee turnover rate was 39.7% in 2025 counting every separation, and 24.0% counting quits alone, our sum of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly JOLTS rates. In August 2026, the latest month published, 1.9% of workers quit and 3.2% left for any reason. Accommodation and food services turns over fastest, with a 2025 quits rate of 50.8%; government is slowest at 9.6%.

An employee turnover rate is the share of a workforce that leaves during a period, voluntarily or not, divided by average headcount. The BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) splits it into quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations such as retirements, and publishes each by industry and region every month. All figures here, current as of Oct 2026, were read from the BLS data series on 28 October 2026.

HRpresso analysis: at the 2025 national quits rate, a 100-person company loses about 24 people a year who chose to leave. Replacing them at SHRM's average nonexecutive cost per hire comes to $131,400 a year in hiring costs alone, and Gallup's replacement-cost range puts the full bill at $768,768 to $3,075,072 at the BLS median full-time salary, our arithmetic.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracked 28 employee engagement tools on 27 October 2026, and only 11% of them are free, freemium or open source. Lattice is listed as an alternative to 45 other tools there, the most in the category.

Five findings

1. Six in ten separations are quits. Of the 62.8 million separations BLS counted in 2025, 38.0 million were people quitting, about 61%, our arithmetic from the monthly levels. Layoffs and discharges added up to a 13.4% annual rate.
2. A restaurant job turns over five times as often as a government one. Accommodation and food services posted a 50.8% quits rate in 2025 against 9.6% for government, a ratio of about 5.3 to 1.
3. Retail quitting is rising in 2026. Retail's quits rates for January to August 2026 sum to 24.2%, against 20.8% for the same months of 2025, an increase of about 16%. In August alone, retail's seasonally adjusted quits rate was 3.0%, up from 2.4% a year earlier.
4. The South loses people fastest, the West slowest. In August 2026, quits ran at 2.4% in the South and 1.3% in the West, with the Northeast at 1.7% and the Midwest at 2.0%.
5. Federal separations jumped in 2025. Federal government's total separations rate summed to 21.6% in 2025, up from 12.9% in 2024, while its quits rate went from 6.1% to 9.6%. Its January to August 2026 separations sum to 9.7%, close to the 10.0% of the same months in 2025, so the jump came in the last four months of 2025.

Employee turnover rate by industry

The first two rate columns are the seasonally adjusted monthly quits rate for August 2026 and August 2025. The last two are full-year 2025 annual rates, computed as the sum of the 12 monthly rates that are not seasonally adjusted, for quits and for total separations.

Source: BLS JOLTS data series by industry, for example accommodation and food services quits, seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted, read 28 October 2026. August 2026 figures are preliminary. Annual rates are our sums of the monthly rates.

The gap between quits and total separations shows where turnover is not voluntary. Arts, entertainment and recreation quits at a near-average pace but separates people at 73.5% a year, a gap consistent with seasonal jobs ending. Construction and professional and business services show the same pattern, with total separations about twice their quits. An HR team in those sectors should benchmark quits for retention and total separations for workforce planning, not one number for both.

Health care sits right at the national average, which hides a staffing problem. A quits rate near a quarter of the workforce weighs more in a sector where new hires need credentials checked and clinical onboarding before they can work a full shift. The onboarding software ranking and the HR software for healthcare guide cover the tools built to shorten that ramp.

Turnover by region

Source: BLS JOLTS regional series, for example South region quits, not seasonally adjusted, read 28 October 2026. Monthly figures are seasonally adjusted; annual rates are our sums of the unadjusted monthly rates.

The Northeast keeps people longest over a full year, with a 2025 quits rate 6.6 points below the Midwest's. The West's August reading is unusually low for that region, and its 2026 year-to-date quits are below the same months of 2025, so employers there face a calmer market than a year ago. A Southern employer, by contrast, is competing in the region where workers are most willing to walk.

How 2026 compares with 2025 so far

From January to August 2026, the national quits rates sum to 16.1%, against 16.8% for the same eight months of 2025, and total separations sum to 26.6% against 27.1%. Turnover is drifting slightly lower in 2026, consistent with a labor market where hires and separations both cooled: the 2025 annual hires rate summed to 39.7%, the same as separations, so employers replaced people at roughly the rate they lost them.

At the monthly level, 3.1 million people quit in August 2026, from a seasonally adjusted total of 5.1 million separations, per the BLS quits level series. Our HR statistics for 2026 put those monthly numbers next to openings, hires and pay.

Retail is the exception to the cooling. A rising quits rate there shows up first in scheduling gaps, which is why the free employee scheduling apps ranking and the shift scheduling software guide are worth a look for store operators budgeting for 2027.

What does employee turnover cost a 100-person company?

Two published benchmarks frame the cost. SHRM's 2025 benchmarking release of 15 October 2025 puts the average nonexecutive cost per hire at $5,475 and the executive average at $35,879. Gallup's analysis of voluntary turnover, published 13 March 2019, estimates that replacing one employee costs one-half to two times that person's annual salary, and calls that range conservative.

SHRM's figure covers recruiting spend only, while Gallup's range also prices in lost productivity, training and the weeks a team runs short. Treat the first as the floor of your budget and the second as the band a CFO should expect.

Every row is our arithmetic: 100 times the 2025 quits rate, times SHRM's nonexecutive cost per hire.

Gallup's range turns those numbers into a much larger bill. BLS puts median usual weekly earnings for full-time wage and salary workers at $1,232 in the third quarter of 2026 (series LEU0252881500), or $64,064 a year at 52 weeks. At that salary one departure costs $32,032 to $128,128 on Gallup's range, and 24 departures cost the totals in the analysis line at the top of this page, our arithmetic.

To run the calculation for your own company, multiply headcount by your industry's annual quits rate from the table, then multiply by your average salary times 0.5 for the low case and 2 for the high case. Set that bill against a year of retention software: compare it with the cost of an employee engagement platform or an employee survey tool before deciding retention software is too expensive.

How to benchmark your own turnover rate

Compute your rate the way BLS does for one month: separations during the month divided by average employment, times 100. Add the 12 monthly rates for an annual figure, or divide the year's separations by average headcount. Count quits separately from layoffs and other exits, because only quits measure whether people chose to leave you.

Then compare like with like. A hotel group with 45% annual quits is beating its industry; a software company with the same figure is losing people at almost three times the information sector's rate. Track the trend by quarter, and when the number moves, the 360 feedback tools and people analytics tools rankings cover the software that helps explain why. Pay is often the reason, and our minimum wage by state table shows where the legal floor moved in 2026.

Engagement platforms such as Lattice, Culture Amp and 15Five sell on retention; recognition tools such as Bonusly sit at the cheaper end. The employee recognition software ranking compares that tier.

Methodology

All turnover rates come from BLS JOLTS data series read on data.bls.gov and through the BLS public data service on 28 October 2026, covering January 2024 to August 2026; August 2026 values are preliminary and BLS revises them. Monthly figures are seasonally adjusted; annual rates are our sums of the 12 not seasonally adjusted monthly rates, and they count separations rather than unique people, so one role that turns over twice counts twice. Cost figures are SHRM's and Gallup's published benchmarks applied to BLS data, and every total is our arithmetic. HRpresso runs no survey of its own for this page. Next refresh after the September 2026 JOLTS data.

FAQ

What is the average employee turnover rate in 2026?

The latest full year is 2025: total separations summed to 39.7% of US nonfarm employment and quits to 24.0%, from BLS JOLTS monthly rates. In 2026 through August, both are running slightly below the same months of 2025, with a monthly quits rate of 1.9% in August 2026.

Which industry has the highest turnover?

Accommodation and food services has the highest quits rate, 50.8% in 2025. Arts, entertainment and recreation has the highest total separations rate at 73.5%, driven by seasonal job endings rather than quits. Retail trade ranks second on quits at 30.8%.

Which industry has the lowest turnover?

Government, with a 2025 quits rate of 9.6% for federal and for state and local alike. In the private sector, information has the lowest quits rate at 15.4%, followed by financial activities at 16.1% and manufacturing at 16.6%.

How much does employee turnover cost?

SHRM's 2025 benchmark puts the average nonexecutive cost per hire at $5,475, which is the recruiting spend alone. Gallup estimates the full cost of replacing an employee at one-half to two times annual salary. For a 100-person company at the 2025 national quits rate, that is $131,400 in hiring costs, or far more once lost productivity is counted.

What is a good employee turnover rate?

One below your industry's rate. A 20% annual quits rate is good for a restaurant, where the 2025 figure was 50.8%, and poor for a bank, where financial activities posted 16.1%. Compare quits with quits, and total separations with total separations.

How is the employee turnover rate calculated?

Divide the number of separations in a period by average headcount and multiply by 100. BLS publishes monthly rates; adding the 12 monthly rates gives an annual figure, which is how the 2025 rates on this page were computed.

Cite this: HRpresso, "Employee Turnover Statistics 2026: BLS Quit and Separation Rates by Industry", November 2026. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS.

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