A compiled reference of 34 verified statistics on retail employee turnover: a 25-year annual turnover series we computed directly from Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS and CES data, how retail compares with 15 other industries on a like-for-like basis, role-level rates from named industry surveys, and the scheduling practices that measurably move retention. Every figure is drawn from a named public source (the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Korn Ferry, NACS, Mercer, peer-reviewed academic research) and independently checked before publishing, and the famous figures that failed verification are listed with what we found when we traced them.
Key statistics
6 highlights from this report
Key statistics
Key takeaways
Retail employee turnover is real, large, and falling. The true annual rate, computed from federal separations data, was 45.2% in 2025, the lowest in the 25-year record, and 15 points below the "60%" figure that circulates with a BLS attribution BLS never published.
Retail's real annual turnover rate was 45.2% in 2025, the lowest in the 25-year record.
The famous "60% retail turnover, per BLS" figure has never appeared in a BLS publication.
Turnover peaked at 69.8% in 2020 and has fallen every year since 2021.
Retail's turnover premium over the private-sector average collapsed from 17.8 points to 5.6.
Cashiers alone need ~521,300 hires a year through 2035, all replacement demand.
Over 27% of full-time c-store associates leave within their first 30 days.
How we built this report
Every figure was compiled in August 2026 from named public sources, and the headline series was computed by us directly from federal microdata rather than quoted from anyone.
- Computed, not quoted
The annual turnover series comes from BLS JOLTS annual separations levels divided by CES average annual employment, for every year 2001 through 2025. The exact series IDs and formula are printed below so the arithmetic can be rerun by anyone.
- Only explicitly stated figures elsewhere
Survey figures (Korn Ferry, NACS, Mercer, academic studies) are included only where the named source states the number directly, and each is attributed inline at the point it appears, with its year.
- Disagreements shown, not averaged
Mercer's 26.7% voluntary rate and our 45.2% total rate measure different things; we show both and explain the difference rather than blending them.
- Independent review
Written by one co-founder, reviewed by the other before publishing, including a rerun of the headline computation.
Scope caveats: JOLTS counts separation events, not people, so a worker hired and separated twice in a year counts twice (this is equally true of standard HR turnover rates). Retail trade here is NAICS 44-45, which excludes restaurants and food service. BLS re-benchmarks JOLTS annually, so the most recent five years are subject to revision, and 2026 monthly data is preliminary.
Retail turnover, by the numbers
All 34 figures, grouped by theme. Statistics we computed from federal data are labeled "Computed"; everything else carries its named public source and was independently verified against the original.
The real rate: 45.2%, and falling
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) publishes everything needed to compute a true annual turnover rate for retail, but does not publish the rate itself. Its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey reports that retail trade recorded 6,987,000 total separations in 2025, and its Current Employment Statistics program puts retail's average 2025 employment at 15,441,100. Dividing one by the other gives the standard HR definition of annual turnover: 45.2%.
Retail trade's annual turnover rate, 2025
The lowest figure in the entire 25-year JOLTS record. The previous low was 46.3% in 2010; the peak was 69.8% in 2020. Retail turnover has now fallen for four consecutive years.
25 years of retail turnover
Annual total separations rate, retail trade (NAICS 44-45), computed from BLS JOLTS and CES data
Every year 2001-2025: 66.9, 60.7, 58.6, 61.7, 63.2, 63.2, 60.8, 58.8, 48.6, 46.3, 46.4, 47.2, 50.1, 56.2, 57.3, 54.7, 54.0, 58.0, 58.6, 69.8, 64.9, 59.7, 54.3, 48.0, 45.2 (%).
Statistic 1
Retail trade's annual turnover rate was 45.2% in 2025, the lowest in the 25-year JOLTS record.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS JOLTS and CES data (2026)
Statistic 2
Turnover peaked at 69.8% in 2020, held above 59% through 2022, then fell to 54.3% (2023), 48.0% (2024), and 45.2% (2025).
RapidEye Research computation from BLS data (2026)
Statistic 3
Retail's annual quits rate fell from 50.8% in 2021 to 30.8% in 2025; quits are still about 68% of all retail separations.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS JOLTS data (2026)
Statistic 4
Layoffs and discharges made up 28.3% of retail separations in 2025, the highest share since 2020; the decline in turnover is not purely voluntary.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS JOLTS data (2026)
Statistic 5
First-half 2026 retail separations are up 7.2% year over year, the first sign the four-year decline may be reversing.
RapidEye Research computation from preliminary BLS JOLTS data (2026)
What this means: the tightest-labor-market story of 2021-2022 is over. Retail retention has improved for four straight years, but the composition shifted: fewer people are quitting, while the layoff share quietly doubled from its 2022 low.
Where "60% turnover" actually came from
Most top-ranking articles state that retail turnover "is around 60%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics." We checked: no BLS publication states that figure. What BLS publishes is an "annual average total separations rate" of 3.8% for retail in 2025, whose own footnote defines it against the sum of twelve monthly employment levels, making it arithmetically a per-month rate. The true annual rate is exactly twelve times it. The 60% figure was roughly correct for 2001-2007 and 2020-2022, and has simply been copied forward since.
"The average retail turnover rate is around 60%, according to the BLS."
What the record shows: BLS has never published a 60% annual retail turnover rate. Its published 2025 figure is a 3.8% monthly-equivalent separations rate; annualized correctly it is 45.2%. One widely read page even hyperlinks the claim to a BLS PDF that does not contain it.
"BLS data shows subsectors like general merchandise and clothing stores reach 81% turnover."
What the record shows: impossible. The official JOLTS industry code list contains exactly one retail entry, "440000 Retail trade." BLS publishes no retail subsector turnover series at any frequency. Every subsector figure attributed to BLS is fabricated or misattributed.
"Replacing a $10-per-hour retail employee costs $3,328."
What the record shows: a derivation, not a measurement: 16% of a $20,800 annual salary, where the 16% comes from a 2012 Center for American Progress meta-analysis (americanprogress.org) covering all jobs under $30,000, none of them retail-specific. Usable only with the derivation and its age shown.
Statistic 6
BLS's published "annual average total separations rate" divides annual separations by the sum of 12 monthly employment levels, making it a monthly rate; the true annual turnover rate is exactly 12 times the published figure.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS annual tables footnote (2026)
Statistic 7
JOLTS publishes retail trade as one sector; its official industry code file contains no retail subsectors, so no BLS turnover figure exists for grocery, clothing, or general merchandise stores.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS industry code list (2026)
Statistic 8
State-level retail turnover does not exist in public data: JOLTS state estimates are produced only at the total-nonfarm level.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS FAQ (2026)
What this means: if an article quotes retail turnover by state or by subsector "per BLS," the number was invented somewhere downstream. The only honest granularity in public federal data is the sector as a whole.
How retail compares with other industries
Computed the same way for every sector, retail is no longer the turnover outlier it is portrayed as. Its 2025 rate of 45.2% ranks sixth among the sixteen JOLTS industry aggregates, and its premium over the total-private average (43.5%) has collapsed from 17.8 percentage points in 2021 to 5.6 points.
Statistic 9
Retail ranks 6th of 16 industry aggregates for 2025 turnover, behind arts and recreation (73.8%), leisure and hospitality (66.8%), accommodation and food services (65.5%), professional and business services (55.3%), and construction (48.0%).
RapidEye Research computation from BLS data (2026)
Statistic 10
Retail's turnover premium over total private industry fell from 17.8 percentage points (1.38x) in 2021 to 5.6 points (1.14x) in 2025; retail is converging on the national average.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS data (2026)
Statistic 11
Accommodation and food services (NAICS 722), often blended into "retail" figures, actually turned over at 65.5% in 2025, 20 points above retail trade proper.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS data (2026)
What this means: a lot of "retail turnover" discourse is actually restaurant turnover wearing retail's name. Separating NAICS 44-45 from 722 moves the number by 20 points.
The jobs behind the number
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook (bls.gov), the two biggest retail occupations must hire more than a million people a year just to stand still. Median tenure data from the Current Population Survey shows the churn is structural: the typical retail worker has been in their job 2.9 years, a full year less than the national median.
Statistic 12
About 521,300 cashier openings are projected each year through 2035, all from replacement need, in an occupation projected to decline 6%.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook (2025-35 projections)
Statistic 13
Retail sales workers add about 550,600 projected annual openings against 0% employment growth; nearly all replacement demand.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook (2025-35 projections)
Statistic 14
Median employee tenure in retail trade was 2.9 years in January 2024, versus 3.9 years for all US workers.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Tenure release (2024)
Statistic 15
Cashiers' median pay was $32,880 a year in May 2025 ($15.81/hour), versus $50,980 for all workers; retail sales workers earned a median $35,560.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook (2025)
Statistic 16
Retail employees average 30.0 hours of work a week, below the BLS 35-hour full-time line, versus 34.3 hours across the private sector.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics (July 2026)
Statistic 17
86.6% of retail employment is production and nonsupervisory (13.37 million of 15.44 million employees).
RapidEye Research computation from BLS CES figures (July 2026)
Statistic 18
32% of all first jobs in America are in retail, and retail supports 55 million US jobs by the National Retail Federation's broad economic-impact definition (which includes food service and indirect effects; BLS payroll retail employment is 15.4 million).
National Retail Federation, industry impact research (2024)
What this means: even at a record-low turnover rate, replacement hiring is the retail workforce's permanent condition: over a million openings a year in just two occupations, in roles paying 30-35% below the national median.
Inside the industry's own surveys
The only public role-level breakdowns come from industry surveys. According to Korn Ferry (kornferry.com), whose November 2022 survey covered more than 100 major US retailers with revenues from $100 million to over $20 billion, hourly in-store turnover ran 75.8% in 2022 while corporate turnover at the same companies ran 17.4%. According to NACS (convenience.org), the convenience-store trade association, the industry's average store-employee turnover "typically tops 100%". And according to Mercer (imercer.com), whose 2025 survey covered 2,617 US organizations, retail and wholesale has the highest voluntary turnover of any US industry at 26.7%.
Statistic 19
Hourly in-store retail positions turned over at 75.8% in 2022, up from 68% in 2021; store managers ran 17.7% and assistant store managers 29.2%.
Korn Ferry retailer survey (2022)
Statistic 20
Part-time hourly store employees turned over at about 85% in both 2021 and 2022; corporate roles at the same retailers ran 17.4%.
Korn Ferry retailer survey (2022)
Statistic 21
By October 2023, 30% of surveyed retailers said hourly store-employee turnover was down 10% or more from the prior year, corroborating the federal decline from inside the industry.
Korn Ferry retailer survey (2023)
Statistic 22
The median retail start rate rose from $10/hour in 2019 to $12/hour in 2023, yet 82% of retailers still reported problems hiring store employees.
Korn Ferry retailer survey (2023)
Statistic 23
Over 27% of full-time convenience-store sales associates leave within their first 30 days, and over 108% leave annually.
NACS State of the Industry Talent Insights Dashboard (2025)
Statistic 24
Top-decile convenience operators (by store operating profit) ran 60.8% employee turnover in the first half of 2025, against an industry average that typically tops 100%; their manager turnover was 17.1%.
NACS data (2026)
Statistic 25
Top-decile convenience operators invest $23.10 per labor hour in wages and benefits versus $18.22 in the bottom decile, and generate $8 more gross profit per labor hour.
NACS data (2026)
Statistic 26
Retail and wholesale has the highest voluntary turnover of any US industry at 26.7%, against a 13.0% all-industry average; insurance is lowest at 8.2%.
Mercer US Turnover Survey, 2,617 organizations (2025)
What this means: the numbers disagree because the definitions disagree. Mercer counts voluntary exits at survey-panel employers (26.7%); our federal computation counts every separation event at every establishment (45.2%); NACS counts an hourly-heavy single channel (100%+). All three are true. Any article quoting one without its definition is guessing.
What actually moves retail turnover
The strongest causal evidence comes from an academic panel of retail and food-service workers by Choper, Schneider, and Harknett, published through the Washington Center for Equitable Growth (equitablegrowth.org) and later in ILR Review. Its implied 51.9% annual turnover rate independently validated the same JOLTS annualization we use, and its findings isolate scheduling as a lever: a single cancelled shift is associated with a 14-point jump in turnover.
Statistic 27
Retail and food-service workers who had at least one shift cancelled turned over at 41%, versus 27% for those who did not; on-call scheduling raised the odds of leaving 1.35x.
Choper, Schneider & Harknett, Washington Center for Equitable Growth (2019)
Statistic 28
Workers given 0-3 days of schedule notice turned over at 37%, versus 24% with two or more weeks of notice.
Choper, Schneider & Harknett, Washington Center for Equitable Growth (2019)
Statistic 29
Only 48.6% of hourly retail and food workers received their schedule more than two weeks in advance; 40.7% had variable schedules, and 41.4% worked "clopening" shifts.
Choper, Schneider & Harknett, Washington Center for Equitable Growth (2019)
Statistic 30
Among workers who quit, 26.2% named a bad schedule as a reason, 31.4% a bad manager, and 18.0% overall job quality; 88.5% of all turnover in the panel was quits, not firings.
Choper, Schneider & Harknett, Washington Center for Equitable Growth (2019)
Statistic 31
Replacing a worker earning under $30,000 a year costs about 16% of annual salary, per a meta-analysis of 30 case studies; applied to a median cashier's $32,880, roughly $5,300 per exit (a derived figure, shown as such).
Center for American Progress meta-analysis (2012); derivation by RapidEye Research
Statistic 32
January is retail's heaviest separations month and December its lightest hiring month relative to trend, making the post-holiday unwind the sector's structural churn event.
RapidEye Research computation from BLS JOLTS monthly data (2026)
Statistic 33
The National Retail Federation projected 265,000-365,000 seasonal hires for the 2025 holiday season, down from 442,000 in 2024.
National Retail Federation holiday forecast (2025)
Statistic 34
A national worker panel measured an implied 51.9% annual turnover rate for retail and food service in 2017-2018, which its authors benchmarked against the BLS-derived 53.0%, independently validating the annualization method used on this page.
Choper, Schneider & Harknett, Washington Center for Equitable Growth (2019)
What this means: the retention levers with measured effects are unglamorous: schedule notice, shift stability, wage-per-labor-hour, and the first 30 days. For operators, the churn also has an operational shadow: at 45% annual turnover, the people executing a store's merchandising, cleanliness, and safety standards are perpetually new, which is why chains that verify store condition rely on systems rather than tenure.
Cite this study
Academic or press use: copy a ready-made reference. RapidEye is the publisher.
Quick FAQ
What is the average retail employee turnover rate?
45.2% annually as of 2025: 6,987,000 total separations against 15,441,100 average employees in retail trade, computed from Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS and CES data. That is the lowest figure in the 25-year record, down from 69.8% in 2020 and 58.6% in 2019.
Is retail turnover really 60%, as most sources say?
Not anymore. The 60% figure was roughly right in 2001-2007 and 2020-2022 but has been wrong for three years: 54.3% in 2023, 48.0% in 2024, 45.2% in 2025. No BLS publication has ever stated a 60% annual retail turnover rate; the attribution is copied between articles.
Does the BLS publish retail turnover by subsector or by state?
No, on both counts. The official JOLTS industry list contains one retail entry (NAICS 44-45 as a whole), and state JOLTS estimates exist only for total nonfarm employment. Role-level splits come only from industry surveys: Korn Ferry measured 75.8% hourly in-store versus 17.4% corporate in 2022.
How much of retail turnover is voluntary?
About 68%. In 2025 retail's quits rate was 30.8% against a 12.8% layoff-and-discharge rate. The quits share peaked in 2021, when the annual quits rate alone hit 50.8%.
What reduces retail turnover, based on evidence?
Schedule stability has the strongest measured effect: turnover was 41% among workers with a cancelled shift versus 27% without, and 37% with 0-3 days schedule notice versus 24% with two-plus weeks, per the Choper, Schneider and Harknett panel study. NACS data adds a pay lever: top-decile convenience operators spend $23.10 per labor hour versus $18.22 in the bottom decile and run 60.8% turnover against an industry norm above 100%.
Data sources
Every figure on this page traces to one of these named public sources, each checked against the original before publishing. Statistics labeled "Computed" are RapidEye Research calculations from the federal datasets listed here.
Bureau of Labor StatisticsJOLTS separations series, CES employment, tenure and occupational outlook databls.gov
Korn FerryAnnual retailer workforce surveys, 2022 and 2023kornferry.com
NACSState of the Industry talent and retention dataconvenience.org
Washington Center for Equitable GrowthRetail and food-service worker panel study on scheduling and turnoverequitablegrowth.org
Center for American ProgressMeta-analysis of employee replacement costsamericanprogress.org
National Retail FederationIndustry impact research and holiday hiring forecastsnrf.com