What is the average employee turnover rate by industry?
Total separations is the broadest turnover measure: every quit, layoff, discharge and other separation as a share of employment. In 2025 it averaged 3.6% a month across private industry. Among the industries shown, arts, entertainment and recreation (6.1%) and accommodation and food services (5.5%) turn over fastest; finance and insurance (2.1%) and private educational services (2.2%) slowest. All four measures use the same BLS denominator.
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| Industry or published group | Total separations | Quits | Layoffs and discharges | Hires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 3.3% | 2% | 1.1% | 3.3% |
| Total private | 3.6% | 2.2% | 1.2% | 3.6% |
| Manufacturing | 2.4% | 1.4% | 0.9% | 2.4% |
| Wholesale trade | 2.3% | 1.4% | 0.8% | 2.2% |
| Retail trade | 3.8% | 2.6% | 1.1% | 3.7% |
| Information | 2.8% | 1.3% | 1.3% | 2.6% |
| Finance and insurance | 2.1% | 1.3% | 0.6% | 2.1% |
| Real estate and rental and leasing | 2.6% | 1.6% | 0.9% | 2.6% |
| Professional and business services | 4.6% | 2.3% | 2% | 4.6% |
| Private educational services | 2.2% | 1.4% | 0.7% | 2.2% |
| Health care and social assistance | 2.9% | 2% | 0.7% | 3.1% |
| Arts, entertainment, and recreation | 6.1% | 2.2% | 3.8% | 6.3% |
| Accommodation and food services | 5.5% | 4.2% | 1.1% | 5.5% |
| Other services | 3.3% | 2.2% | 1% | 3.4% |
All figures are annual-average monthly rates for 2025, not annual probabilities. Total includes government; Total private excludes government. Selected industry rows are not an exhaustive decomposition of either total.
Primary sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026
What is the average attrition rate by industry?
Attrition usually means people leaving voluntarily, and the closest BLS measure is the quits rate in the table above. Quits averaged 2.2% a month in private industry in 2025: among the industries shown, highest in accommodation and food services (4.2%) and retail trade (2.6%), lowest in information and in finance and insurance (1.3% each).
Some employers also count retirements or all departures as attrition. Match your own definition to quits or total separations before you compare.
Primary sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — checked October 9, 2026
Key takeaways
Each takeaway links to its canonical data row. Reported figures belong to their cited producer; modeled results are labeled as calculations.
- Total private: annual average total separations rate: 3.6% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Total private: annual average quits rate: 2.2% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Total private: annual average layoffs and discharges rate: 1.2% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Total private: annual average hires rate: 3.6% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Professional and business services: annual average total separations rate: 4.6% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Professional and business services: annual average quits rate: 2.3% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Information: annual average quits rate: 1.3% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Finance and insurance: annual average quits rate: 1.3% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Accommodation and food services: annual average quits rate: 4.2% (2025 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Total private: annual average quits rate: 3% (2021 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Professional and business services: annual average quits rate: 3.4% (2021 annual average).U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
How do turnover and hiring rates compare across regions?
Regional rates summarize nonfarm establishments in each BLS region; differences can reflect industry and employer composition, not just local retention practices.
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| BLS region | Total separations | Quits | Layoffs and discharges | Hires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast | 3% | 1.6% | 1.2% | 3% |
| South | 3.4% | 2.2% | 1% | 3.4% |
| Midwest | 3.5% | 2.2% | 1.2% | 3.5% |
| West | 3.3% | 1.9% | 1.2% | 3.2% |
Regions follow the definitions in the original tables and include the District of Columbia in the South. No state-specific rate is inferred from a regional rate.
Primary sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026
How have quits rates changed since 2021?
The private-sector and professional-and-business-services quits rates are below their 2021 levels in this revised series. Earlier comparison points are listed here; the latest-year figures remain in the industry table above.
| Published group and year | Annual-average monthly quits rate |
|---|---|
| Total private · 2021 | 3% |
| Total private · 2022 | 3.1% |
| Total private · 2023 | 2.6% |
| Total private · 2024 | 2.3% |
| Professional and business services · 2021 | 3.4% |
| Professional and business services · 2022 | 3.3% |
| Professional and business services · 2023 | 2.6% |
| Professional and business services · 2024 | 2.4% |
All comparison points come from the same revised BLS table. These observations do not identify why people left or establish a causal effect of remote work, management practices or software.
Primary source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026
Can an annual-average quits rate be called annual employee turnover?
Not without explaining its denominator. BLS sums monthly events and divides by summed monthly employment; it does not count the percentage of unique employees who leave during a year.
Do not multiply the reported rate by 12 and call it a worker’s probability of quitting. One person can produce more than one employment event, and establishments’ employment changes during the year.
Primary sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 13, 2026 · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — checked October 9, 2026
Why do quits and layoffs not add exactly to total separations?
Total separations also include other separations, such as retirements, deaths, disability and transfers to other locations. Published rates are rounded, so even a full category sum can differ slightly.
Quits are generally voluntary separations; layoffs and discharges are initiated by the employer. These categories are not interchangeable measures of dissatisfaction or retention quality.
Primary source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — checked October 9, 2026
How should you compare your own turnover measure?
Match the event type, reporting period and denominator first. Keep quits separate from layoffs and transfers, and document how monthly employment is counted.
An internal annual share of unique people leaving is not the same measure as the BLS annual-average monthly event rate. Reconcile the definitions before comparing the two.
Methodology and limitations
- We compiled selected rows of BLS JOLTS Tables 18, 20, 22 and 24, last modified March 13, 2026, using 2025 annual averages and selected earlier quits-rate comparisons from the same release.
- Each rate equals the sum of 12 monthly event levels divided by the sum of 12 monthly Current Employment Statistics employment levels, multiplied by 100. The tables are not seasonally adjusted and incorporate revised employment benchmarks.
- Reported values are kept at the producer’s precision. Every row identifies its original table, category and year. We do not annualize rates into unique-worker percentages or calculate unsupported replacement-cost estimates.
- The service-industry rows are an editorial selection relevant to client-work operations, not a complete ranking of industries. No sample of Workspace369 users is involved.
- All 360 saved annual source values across the four BLS tables were matched to the original tables on October 9, 2026. Values are unchanged; the latest year in this annual series remains 2025.
- On October 29, 2026 we rechecked all 56 industry values for 2025 against the 12 monthly not-seasonally-adjusted rates in the BLS Public Data API. Each published annual average matched the mean of its monthly rates within 0.07 percentage points, the difference expected from BLS weighting by monthly employment and rounding. The published tables remain the source of every figure shown.
What these numbers cannot tell you
- These are establishment-based employment-event rates, not unique people, company-level retention scores or small-business-only estimates.
- Published rounded point estimates do not establish that small differences are statistically significant. Industry aggregates hide differences in firm size, occupations and employment arrangements.
- Quits, layoffs, other separations and hires measure different events. None alone establishes a business’s employee experience or explains why a worker left.
Freshness and corrections
Maintained by the Workspace369 editorial team. Review annually when the next primary release is available; check source links quarterly. The edition date changes only when the evidence or content is substantively reviewed; it does not change the underlying observation period.
First edition: . Data extraction, source attribution and arithmetic checked for this edition. No independent peer review is claimed.
Found an error or a newer primary release? Send a correction with the source and affected statistic. Confirmed corrections are recorded below before republishing.
Revision history
Evidence dates above describe the report. Download and citation updates below do not imply that sources were checked again.
- — Versioned CSV and JSON archives, checksums and reference-manager exports added. Source observations and evidence dates are unchanged.
- — Answer table for the average turnover rate by industry moved to the top, attrition (quits) answer added, and all 2025 industry values rechecked against the BLS Public Data API. Source observations are unchanged.
Primary sources and provenance
Every reported numeric cell links directly to its producer. The downloads include exact table or workbook locators, observation periods, access dates, formulas and input references.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsTable 18. Annual average hires rates by industry and region, not seasonally adjusted ↗Published March 13, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.U.S. federal government data; attribution requested. No agency endorsement.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsTable 20. Annual average total separations rates by industry and region, not seasonally adjusted ↗Published March 13, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.U.S. federal government data; attribution requested. No agency endorsement.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsTable 22. Annual average quits rates by industry and region, not seasonally adjusted ↗Published March 13, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.U.S. federal government data; attribution requested. No agency endorsement.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsTable 24. Annual average layoffs and discharges rates by industry and region, not seasonally adjusted ↗Published March 13, 2026. Accessed October 9, 2026.U.S. federal government data; attribution requested. No agency endorsement.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsJOLTS definitions and technical notes ↗Publication date not recorded; see the original source. Accessed October 9, 2026.U.S. federal government data; attribution requested. No agency endorsement.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsBLS Public Data API: JOLTS monthly rates, not seasonally adjusted (series JTU…TSR, QUR, LDR, HIR) ↗Publication date not recorded; see the original source. Accessed October 29, 2026.U.S. federal government data; attribution requested. No agency endorsement.
How to cite this report
For a source-reported statistic, credit the original publisher and link to the exact row here when using our compilation. For a modeled result, cite Workspace369 and include the assumptions. Linking to this page does not make us the original producer of third-party data.
Workspace369. (2026-10-29). Average Employee Turnover Rate by Industry: 2026 Statistics. https://workspace369.com/research/employee-turnover-statistics-by-industry/. Primary sources and observation periods as listed in the report.
Versioned data
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Dataset version: 63ae16e1b94f656da82ad067ca6226708cf26859a4cf180d340835d62ea5d7a8
Reference exports describe Workspace369’s compilation. When citing a reported observation, also credit its original producer.