What does staff turnover actually cost you?
Replacing someone costs far more than advertising the role. This calculator adds up the four costs that actually bite — recruiting, covering the gap, training the replacement, and the weeks before they are fully productive.
This calculator provides general estimates only. Real turnover costs depend on the role, industry, how quickly a vacancy is filled and how long a replacement takes to become productive. It does not constitute financial, legal or payroll advice. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.
Estimate your turnover cost
Start with salary, headcount and how many people left in the last year. Open the advanced options to match your own recruitment and ramp-up assumptions.
Estimated turnover cost
Estimates only — verify before making decisions.
What goes into the cost of losing someone
The advertised cost of replacing an employee — the job ad, the agency fee — is usually the smallest part. Four costs do the real damage:
- Recruitment. Advertising, agency fees, and the hours your managers spend screening and interviewing.
- Covering the gap. While the role is empty the work still has to happen, usually through overtime or agency cover at a premium. The longer the vacancy, the larger this gets.
- Training. Days of a trainer’s time plus the new starter’s own paid time before they contribute.
- Ramp-up. The weeks between starting and being fully productive. This is the cost people forget, and on a skilled role it is often the biggest single line.
The calculator prices each separately so you can see which one your business should attack first.
Why shift-based businesses feel this hardest
Turnover in hospitality, retail and care runs well above the national average, and those are exactly the industries where covering a vacancy means paying weekend and public-holiday penalty rates. If your cover premium is running above 25%, check what the award actually requires — you may be paying more than you need to, or less than you must.
Reducing the number, not just measuring it
Two of the four costs are directly affected by how you roster.
Vacancy days shrink when open shifts reach every qualified person at once instead of one manager ringing around. Ramp-up shortens when a new starter can see their roster, their site and their tasks without asking.
The rest is retention: predictable rosters, enough notice, and fair shift allocation. Research on shift work consistently finds roster predictability ranks alongside pay as a reason people stay or leave.
Want to reduce the number, not just measure it?
Two of the four costs — vacancy days and ramp-up — are driven directly by how you roster.
Free calculator
Great for sizing the problem
- Cost per departure, broken down
- Annual turnover cost
- Turnover rate and cost as % of salary
- No signup required
- Fill open shifts automatically
- Publish rosters further ahead
- Track cover cost against budget
- Award-aware labour costing
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Staff turnover cost FAQ
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Commonly cited estimates range from roughly half an annual salary for an entry-level role to well over 100% for a skilled or senior one. That spread is why a single benchmark is not much use — the number is driven by how long the role sits vacant, what you pay to cover it, and how long the replacement takes to become productive. Enter your own figures above rather than relying on a rule of thumb.
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Divide the number of employees who left during the period by your total headcount, then multiply by 100. Twelve departures across a team of sixty is a 20% annual turnover rate. The calculator does this for you, and it is worth tracking separately for casual and permanent staff — blending them hides the problem.
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It varies enormously by industry. Shift-based sectors — hospitality, retail, aged care — routinely run far above the all-industries average, and a rate that would alarm a professional-services firm can be ordinary in a café. The useful comparison is your own trend over time, and your rate against similar businesses in your industry, not a national figure.
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Calculate them separately. Casual churn is normally higher and each departure usually costs less, so blending casuals into one figure both flatters your permanent turnover and overstates your cost per departure. Run the calculator twice with different salary and ramp-up assumptions.