What turnover rate is too high?

Asked by: Dr. Moriah Dietrich  |  Last update: November 25, 2025
Score: 4.2/5 (71 votes)

Typically, high turnover means 28% of your new employees quit within the first 90 days of their employment. (Again: this presents an enormous cost to companies because they have to constantly repeat a cycle of recruitment, hiring, and training new people.)

What is considered a high turnover rate?

To determine whether your organization has a high turnover rate, you must first decide against what metric to measure. For example, if you measure your company's voluntary turnover rate at 45%, compared to the average of 25%, your turnover rate would be considered high.

Is 20% staff turnover high?

Employee Turnover Rate Formula

As a general rule of thumb, a turnover rate higher than 20% is a sign that something is probably wrong with your work environment. That means that more than one out of five people who work with you don't want to be there.

How much turnover is too much?

For Starters, There's No Magic Number When It Comes to Employee Turnover. According to Gallup, 10% turnover is healthy, but every industry and every organization is different.

Is 25% a high turnover rate?

For example, in the the 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the overall turnover rate is 57.3 percent, but that number drops to 25 percent when considering only voluntary turnover, 29 percent when considering involuntary turnover and just three percent when looking at only high-performers.

When your job has a high turnover rate

18 related questions found

Is 20% attrition rate high?

Attrition rates are always best considered in the context of your industry and your company, however when we look at averages anything over 20% is considered high attrition and might need a deeper dig into what could be going wrong.

What is a bad employee turnover rate?

A bad employee turnover rate, which usually surpasses 10%, signifies a more frequent departure of staff from the company. This kind of turnover not only disrupts stability but also has a negative impact on morale while incurring significant costs.

Is high turnover a red flag?

Why a High Turnover Rate Is a Red Flag. The company is either hiring people unsuitable for the task or is giving them far more work than they anticipated. It's pretty likely the same thing is about to happen to you.

What is Amazon's turnover rate?

Annual Turnover Rate: Some reports estimate that the annual turnover rate for Amazon's hourly workers is around 100%, meaning that, on average, the company replaces nearly its entire hourly workforce each year.

What is the ideal employee turnover rate?

As a general rule, employee retention rates of 90 percent or higher are considered good, and a company should aim for a turnover rate of 10% or less to keep the company's labor force stable.

What job has the worst turnover rate?

12 examples of high turnover jobs
  • Fast food worker.
  • Hotel receptionist.
  • Childcare teacher.
  • Hotel housekeeper.
  • Waiter.
  • Retail sales associate.
  • Technical support specialist.
  • Customer service representative.

What does a 20% turnover rate mean?

A 20% turnover rate means that 20% of the workforce left the organization during a given period. Whether this is a high or low rate can depend on the industry, company size, and specific circumstances. Still, it generally indicates that one out of every five employees left the company during that time period.

What is excessive employee turnover?

What is a high turnover rate? A high turnover rate means that many of your employees – more than what's expected in your line of business – have quit the organization. What's considered a high turnover rate depends on the industry you're in. Different industries and countries have different expected turnover rates.

What is the perfect turnover rate?

According to recruiting giant Monster, "every firm should establish its unique ideal rate." Pro tip: It's important to note that turnover rates vary significantly from industry to industry. However, turnover rates should (ideally) be lower than 10%, which is a very healthy turnover rate across the board.

What is dysfunctional employee turnover?

Dysfunctional turnover is a type of voluntary turnover, and it happens when your high-performing employees quit at higher rates than your weaker staff. This is called dysfunctional because of its negative impact on end profit since you must keep recruiting and training new staff, which is very costly.

What is a high turnover number?

Turnover numbers for most enzymes range from 1 to 1000 molecules per second. Catalase has the known highest turnover number, capable of converting up to 2.8×106 molecules of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen per second. Lysozyme has the lowest known turnover number of half a molecule per second.

What is the turnover rate at McDonald's?

Particularly relevant information for McDonald's, with about 2 million employees 1 of the 4 largest employers in the world, but at the same time an employer that struggles to find enough candidates, and so far has an annual turnover of more than 130% .

Does Google have a high turnover rate?

Yet a recent study conducted by Resume.io shows the average tenure of a Google employee is only 1.3 years, making them one of the top 10 companies where employees apparently don't want to stay. Granted, that's not unusual for tech and software companies. The average tenure at Zoom is also 1.3 years.

What is unhealthy turnover?

Unhealthy turnover occurs when top performers leave because of job dissatisfaction or lack of growth opportunities, and are not replaced by similarly skilled employees. This can result in a talent drain, decreased productivity, and increased costs of replacement.

What is a red flag for quitting a job?

You may have emergency personal concerns that require an immediate exit, such as an illness or a need to care for a loved one. There is toxicity or harassment in the workplace. You feel unsafe at work.

What is a high annual turnover?

High turnover means that many people are leaving the company, while low turnover means that people tend to stay in their jobs longer. The employee turnover rate is a way to measure how often employees leave a company and are replaced by new ones.

What jobs have a high turnover rate?

HR professionals understand employee turnover better than most people — and not just because their jobs concern the talent lifecycle of all employees. That's because HR itself has the highest turnover rate of any job function, according to LinkedIn's latest behavioral data from around the world.

Is 20% turnover bad?

What Is a good employee retention rate? Generally, the average overall turnover rate for all industries is less than 20%. Rates do vary by industry, however.

What industry has the highest turnover rate?

Turnover rate by industry:
  • Construction: 57%
  • Manufacturing: 40%
  • Trade, Transportation, and Utilities: 55%
  • Information: 39%
  • Financial activities: 29%
  • Professional and Business services: 64%
  • Education and Health services: 37%
  • Leisure and Hospitality: 85%