A new study from document-management tool SmallPDF reveals that the retail sector takes second place when it comes to employees quitting.
The study analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to score every industry’s quit rates – the percentage of total employees quitting in an industry every month – as well as quit levels, which measures how many employees quit in total each month.
The retail trade industry, which came in second place, saw an average of 600,400 employees quitting every month between April and August 2022 and an average quit rate of 3.82%. There was some good news, however: Approximately 109,000 fewer employees quit this August compared to August 2021 in the industry.
The accommodation and food services industry – including fast food workers, waiters and chefs – was the industry with the most quitting across the United States. The industry saw an average of 5.8% of its workforce leave between April and August 2022, when the study was carried out. More than 773,600 employees left every month on average during the study. August 2022 saw 128,000 more employees quit than the number who left their jobs in August 2021, indicating a massive change in staffing.
Notes on additional industries:
- The arts, entertainment and recreation industry ranked third on the list, which includes the likes of fitness trainers, recreation attendants and musicians. This is due to a quit rate of 3.58% on average between April 2022 to August 2022, a high rate despite the low total employee numbers. Around 7,000 more employees quit the industry in August 2022 compared to August 2021.
- Fourth place goes to the professional and business services industry, including lawyers, accountants, architects and more. It saw roughly 754,000 employees quit every month between April and August 2022. The quit rate was, on average, 3.36% during these months. August 2022’s quit number was 63,000 fewer employees than the quit level of August 2021.
- Rounding out the top five is the transportation, warehousing and utilities industry which includes pilots, bus drivers, and truck drivers, saw an average of 199,400 quits every month between April and August this year. The quit rate was 2.82% every month on average. August 2022’s quit level was 32,000 employees higher than August 2021’s level.
The study was conducted by SmallPDF, which offers easy PDF-conversion tools.
