What is a good employee turnover rate?
A good employee turnover rate is one close to your sector's normal pace and falling in your own records. For a US reference point, the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS survey put total separations at 3.3% of employment per month, averaged over 2025. Work yours out monthly: leavers divided by average headcount, times 100.
Start with the formula. Turnover rate equals the people who left in a period, divided by your average headcount for that period, times 100. Average headcount is the starting count plus the closing count, divided by two.
Here's a worked example. A company starts the month with 40 people, ends with 38, and 2 people left. Average headcount is 39, and 2 divided by 39 gives a turnover rate of about 5.1% for the month.
Keep the benchmark in its own units. The BLS figure of 3.3% is a monthly rate across the whole US economy. It counts every kind of separation, from people who quit to layoffs and other exits. Compare it with your own monthly rate, never with a yearly one.
Small teams swing hard. At 20 people, a single leaver is 5% in one month. Read at least six months of rates side by side before you decide the trend is real.
Split the leavers before you judge the number. Someone you let go and someone who resigned for a rival's offer tell you very different things, so record which kind each departure was.
Look at where departures cluster. If most of your leavers are in one department, or in their first year, that's the problem to fix, whatever the headline rate says.
Your records already hold the inputs. PeopleMuster's directory lists everyone by department and exports to CSV, and each profile carries a join date. Run every leaver through an off-boarding checklist, then filter processes by that template. The ones completed in a month give you the leaver count to divide.
A very low rate deserves a second look as well. A team where nobody has left in two years may be healthy, or it may be full of people who've stopped growing and stayed anyway.
Related questions
How do you calculate employee turnover percentage?
Divide the number of people who left in the period by your average headcount for the period, then multiply by 100. Two leavers from an average of 50 people is a 4% turnover rate for that period.
What is the average monthly turnover rate?
In the US, total separations averaged 3.3% of employment per month in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS survey. That figure covers quits, layoffs and other exits across all industries.
What counts as high turnover for a small company?
A rate that stays well above your own six-month average, or above the 3.3% US monthly reference, month after month. On a team of 20, judge the trend over half a year rather than any single month.