Employee Retention Rates by Industry, Location, & Role in 2022

If retention rates are top of mind for you, you’re not alone. Around the world, companies are scrambling to retain their most valuable employees and minimize attrition. As you’ve probably experienced, replacing staff is expensive. On average, it costs one-half to two times the employee's annual salary. Not to mention that some employees simply can’t be replaced right now.

Use our retention rates tables to help guide your internal retention benchmarks. Our retention rates are gathered from the quarterly figures of 10s of thousands of businesses and offer reliable averages against which you can compare your own retention rates.


Retention rates based on 100 million recent data points

To calculate average retention rates, and recent changes in retention rates, we’ve compiled more than 100 million data points. This allows you to look at retention by industry, location, and role. All retention rates on this page are based on these numbers.

If you’re interested to look deeper at how your industry is performing in a particular location, and for particular roles, drop us an email below. We’re happy to share more in-depth data with you at no charge.

Dive deeper into our data for free

For specific insights about retention rates in your industry, location, and roles, send an email to the address below.
Email hello@praisidio.com

Retention rates by industry in 2022


Retention rates varied between industries in 2022, ranging from 83.1% to 90.69%.

From Q3 to Q4 2022, an improvement in retention rates can be seen across the majority of industries. All industries showed improvement except for Information Technology, Video, Mobile, Messaging and Telecommunications, and Agriculture and Farming.
Industry Retention Rate Q4 2022 Annualized Retention Rate Change Q3 to Q4 2022
Administrative Services 92.67% 1.51%
Advertising 92.34% 0.86%
Agriculture and Farming 89.80% -0.38%
Apps 90.64% 0.38%
Artificial Intelligence 83.10% 0.99%
Biotechnology 90.58% 1.94%
Clothing and Apparel 93.53% 1.71%
Commerce and Shopping 90.54% 2.05%
Community and Lifestyle 92.45% 2.00%
Consumer Electronics 92.92% 1.68%
Consumer Goods 92.31% 2.76%
Content and Publishing 93.28% 1.06%
Data and Analytics 85.33% 1.88%
Design 93.26% 1.65%
Education 91.66% 4.92%
Energy 90.75% 2.28%
Events 93.23% 3.26%
Financial Services 86.97% 4.97%
Food and Beverage 88.66% 3.53%
Gaming 88.20% 1.69%
Government and Military 93.53% 3.92%
Hardware 91.61% 1.24%
Health Care 86.93% 3.84%
Information Technology 89.61% 0.00%
Internet Services 91.11% 1.07%
Lending and Investments 92.81% 3.27%
Manufacturing 93.70% 0.75%
Media and Entertainment 90.04% 1.84%
Messaging and Telecommunications 89.70% -0.20%
Mobile 89.98% -0.07%
Music and Audio 92.07% 1.64%
Natural Resources 94.57% 0.16%
Navigation and Mapping 92.36% 0.37%
Other 92.92% 2.48%
Payments 87.34% 0.99%
Platforms 90.64% 1.41%
Privacy and Security 89.32% 2.58%
Professional Services 92.70% 1.72%
Real Estate 90.73% 2.46%
Sales and Marketing 87.46% 1.02%
Science and Engineering 91.13% 1.53%
Software 84.65% 1.06%
Sports 91.14% 2.99%
Sustainability 91.52% 1.74%
Transportation 90.56% 3.33%
Travel and Tourism 92.14% 1.28%
Video 89.97% -0.06%

Retention rates by location in 2022

Retention rates varied between locations in 2022 and ranged from 86.33% at one end of the scale to 93.06% at the other.
Retention rates improved for most major US cities between Q3 and Q4 2022. The exceptions were Charlotte, Las Vegas, Miami, and San Jose which experienced a drop in average retention rate.

Dive deeper into our data for free

For specific insights about retention rates in your industry, location, and roles, send an email to the address below.
Email hello@praisidio.com
Location Retention Rate Q4 2022 Annualized Retention Rate Change Q3 to Q4 2022
Atlanta, GA 90.76% 3.40%
Boston, MA 88.84% 2.35%
Brooklyn, NY 89.80% 2.41%
Charlotte, NC 90.17% -0.03%
Chicago, IL 90.68% 2.41%
Dallas, TX 91.14% 1.24%
Denver, CO 89.98% 1.04%
Houston, TX 93.06% 2.17%
Irvine, CA 90.89% 0.74%
Las Vegas, NV 92.16% -0.18%
Los Angeles, CA 90.61% 1.84%
Miami, FL 92.51% -0.20%
Minneapolis, MN 92.37% 2.90%
New York, NY 89.37% 1.72%
Palo Alto, CA 86.70% 1.06%
Philadelphia, PA 90.42% 1.54%
Phoenix, AZ 92.64% 2.60%
Portland, OR 91.17% 3.11%
San Diego, CA 90.85% 1.27%
San Francisco, CA 86.33% 1.99%
San Jose, CA 91.12% -0.59%
Seattle, WA 90.04% 2.42%
Tampa, FL 92.00% 2.51%
Washington, DC 92.63% 5.18%

Retention rates by role in 2022

Retention rates by role varied between 84.87% and 90.69% in 2022.
Employee retention rates by role improved across the board from Q3 to Q4 2022.
Role Retention Rate Q4 2022 Annualized Retention Rate Change Q3 to Q4 2022
Accounting 94.59% 1.84%
Business Operations 90.56% 1.14%
Design/Art 89.51% 2.41%
Engineering Support 92.43% 0.27%
Finance 92.04% 3.23%
IT Services 93.94% 0.19%
Legal 95.13% 2.61%
Marketing 86.42% 3.77%
Office Support 94.26% 1.77%
Post Sales Support 90.71% 1.23%
Product 88.64% 0.82%
Sales 87.54% 1.29%
Software Engineer - Non-Security 84.87% 3.19%
Software Engineer - Security 89.52% 2.82%
Talent 89.69% 1.55%

How to calculate your employee retention rates

This is how you calculate your employee retention rate. The math is simple:
1. Divide the number of employees who’ve left by the total number of employees at the start of the period.
2. Multiply by 100 to get a percentage.
3. Subtract the result from 100.

For example. You have 200 employees. 12 quit within a period. Your retention rate = 100 - ((12/200) X 100) = 94%

Dive deeper into our data for free

For specific insights about retention rates in your industry, location, and roles, send an email to the address below.
Email hello@praisidio.com

How to improve employee retention rates

On a positive note, retention rates showed a tendency towards improvement between Q3 and Q4 of 2022. This offers much-needed hope after a tumultuous last two years.

For most companies, however, retention rates are still lower than ideal and are likely to be impacting operating costs and employee performance.

At Praisidio, we help large corporations improve their retention rates at scale. From our experience, the first step is diagnosing retention risks (using talent intelligence), then systematically working to reduce those risks at all levels from departments to individuals.

Once you’ve diagnosed your retention risks, these are the strategies we recommend for improving your employee retention rates across locations and roles. We’ve organized the steps you can take by the retention problem they help solve.

Keep in mind that it’s often a mix of factors that cause a drop in retention rates, so you may need to implement strategies from multiple problem areas.

When management change is impacting your retention rate

Frequent changes in management can lead to instability and uncertainty for employees, which can increase the risk of resignations. These steps can help bring your retention rate under control.

When workload or burnout is causing employees to quit

If an employee is feeling burnt out due to excessive meetings or demands, there are steps you can take to help alleviate their workload and reduce burnout.

When resignations are driving other employees to resign

If an employee's peers and collaborators have resigned recently, it can increase the risk of them resigning as well. These ideas can help minimize the domino effect of key resignations.

If other companies are offering more compensation

Compensation can cause resignations when your company is unable to pay as much as other companies. When your employees receive job offers with higher salaries, try these strategies.

If micromanagement is driving your retention rates down

Too much micromanagement and too many manager 1:1s can be triggering for a lot of employees. Keep the following strategies in mind if too much manager intervention is triggering resignations.

When disconnection is hampering retention

If an employee is not having regular one-on-one meetings with their manager, it can make them feel disconnected and unsupported. Here are a few steps you can take to address this issue.

When a lack of vacation time is burning out employees

If employees don’t take vacations frequently enough, it can lead to burnout and negatively impact their productivity and job satisfaction.

Make an impact on your retention rates for 2023 and beyond

If you’d like any help addressing retention rates in your organization, Praisidio can help. We are the experts in diagnosing talent risks and finding the right solution for your situation. We’ve helped other companies reduce attrition costs by as much as $10 million for every 2,000 employees. We’d like to do the same for you.

Book a demo to discuss the level of retention you’d like to achieve in 2023 and how we can help.

Prevention is always better than cure. Book a demo with one of our retention experts to see how Praisidio can help you solve turnover 6 months before it happens.