Restaurant employee turnover rate: 2026 figures and how to work out yours

In July 2026, 4.2% of workers in accommodation and food services (the Bureau of Labor Statistics group that includes restaurants) quit their jobs, and 5.8% left for any reason, in preliminary BLS figures. Across all private employers, 2.4% quit. To work out your own rate, divide the number of people who left by your average headcount.

This page gives the federal figures by year, a worked example you can copy with your payroll report, and what the National Restaurant Association's 2026 research says about hiring and keeping staff.

What is the turnover rate in restaurants?

The BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) reports restaurants together with hotels, so the figures below cover accommodation and food services. They are monthly rates, not seasonally adjusted, and each one is the number of people who left that month per 100 jobs.

Year	Quits per 100 jobs a month, accommodation and food services	All exits per 100 jobs a month, accommodation and food services	Quits per 100 jobs a month, all private employers
2019	4.9	6.6	2.6
2022	5.8	7.0	3.1
2023	5.0	6.3	2.6
2024	4.1	5.4	2.3
2025	4.2	5.5	2.2
2026, January to July	4.1	5.5	2.2

Sources: BLS series for accommodation and food services quits, accommodation and food services total separations and private-sector quits. Each yearly figure is the average of that year's monthly rates. The 2026 row is our average of the seven months published so far, with July still preliminary.

Add up the twelve monthly rates for 2025 and you get about 51 quits and 65 exits for every 100 restaurant and hotel jobs over the year, against about 27 quits and 44 exits per 100 private-sector jobs. That sum is our arithmetic on the BLS monthly figures. In 2025, about three in four exits from accommodation and food services were quits, and layoffs and discharges averaged 1.1% a month.

Is there still a restaurant staffing shortage?

Openings have fallen, and hiring managers and chefs is still hard. In a September 2026 analysis of BLS data, the National Restaurant Association counted 673,000 job openings in restaurants and accommodations on the last business day of July 2026, down from nearly 1 million at the start of the year. It counted 503,000 quits in July, down from an average of 603,000 a month in the first half of 2026.

In its 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry release (February 2026), the Association projected restaurant and foodservice jobs to reach 15.8 million in 2026. It said nearly three quarters of operators plan to hire but expect trouble finding experienced managers and chefs, and it pointed to the shrinking population aged 16 to 24 as a longer-term problem.

Its April 2026 hiring and staffing research put numbers on the gap. Hourly roles took 16 days to fill and manager roles 46 days. A new hourly worker broke even for the business after an average of 31.8 days, and a manager after 72.2 days. Nearly 8 in 10 short-staffed operators said it significantly limits their ability to grow.

How do you calculate your restaurant's turnover rate?

Use this formula: people who left during the period, divided by your average headcount over the same period, times 100. Count everyone who left, including people you let go, and keep quits as a separate count.

Here is a worked example for a made-up restaurant. Every number is hypothetical.

1. Average headcount: add up the number of people on payroll at the end of each month and divide by 12. In the example, that comes to 40.
2. Exits: count everyone who left during the year. In the example, 34 people left: 26 quit and 8 were let go.
3. Turnover rate: 34 divided by 40 is 0.85, so the yearly turnover rate is 85%.
4. Quit rate: 26 divided by 40 is 0.65, or 65%.
5. Monthly rate, to compare with BLS: 34 exits over 12 months is about 2.8 a month. Divided by 40, that is 7.1% a month, against the 5.5% monthly average for accommodation and food services in 2025.
6. Early exits: of the 36 people hired during the year, 11 left within 90 days. 11 divided by 36 is 31%.

The early-exit figure often tells you the most. If a third of new hires leave within 90 days, start with hiring, training and the first few schedules.

Count the time as well as the rate. Using the Association's averages, each hourly exit leaves a role open for about 16 days and then takes about 32 more days before the replacement pays their way. That is roughly seven weeks per exit, our sum of the two averages.

Which numbers should you pull from payroll?

• Month-end headcount for the last 12 months, split into front of house, kitchen and managers.
• Every exit, with the date, role, manager, and whether the person quit or was let go.
• Hire dates, so you can count exits within 30 and 90 days.
• The last schedule each leaver worked: hours, shifts and how much notice they got.
• A one-line reason, from an exit conversation where you can get one.

Split the rates by role and by manager. A single store-wide rate can hide one shift that loses most of its new hires.

What can operators do about turnover?

The Association's April 2026 research points to three levers: faster hiring, structured onboarding in the first 30 to 90 days, and managers trained to lead. It reported that operators using automated hiring tools cut hiring from weeks to as few as 3 to 4 days, that nearly half of restaurants use scheduling software, and that 40% offer digital onboarding.

A checklist to start this month:

1. Work out last year's turnover, quit and 90-day exit rates with the worked example above.
2. Give every new hire a named trainer and a written plan for their first two weeks.
3. Check in with each new hire at day 7, day 30 and day 90, and write down what they say.
4. Post schedules as far ahead as you can, and track how often shifts change after posting.
5. Ask every leaver the same three questions: why they are going, what would have kept them, and what they would change.
6. Look for tasks that pull staff away from guests during the rush and see which ones a tool can take.
7. Rerun the numbers each quarter and compare them with the latest BLS monthly rates.

On point six: if exit interviews name the ringing phone during service, an answering service can take the simple calls. Maple Voice answers hours and FAQ questions and transfers other calls to staff, and Pro adds phone orders and reservations. We have no data showing it lowers turnover, so judge it by whether the calls get handled. For a store with too few people on a shift, our phone handoff checklist sets out which calls still need a person.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines BLS JOLTS monthly data and National Restaurant Association releases from February, April and September 2026 with an original worked example and checklist. The worked example uses made-up numbers. The guide does not report a Maple customer result or claim any product reduces staff turnover.