According to the Australian Human Resources Institute, replacing an average full-time employee in Australia typically costs between 50% and 150% of their annual salary when factoring in recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity.
When someone resigns, the cost tends to land in four places. What you spend to replace them, what you lose while the replacement gets up to speed, what the exit itself costs in admin and entitlements, and then everything that doesn’t fit the first three.
Our calculator adds those four together and shows the total against the departing employee’s salary. Change any figure and the result updates as you type. No data is captured, no email address required.
Employee turnover cost calculator
Live calculation is not running on this page, so the figures below stay fixed on the worked example. Please let us know at alice.williams@greatplacetowork.com.
Base salary plus superannuation, before any on-costs you count separately below.
Agency fees, job ads, assessments and background checks. Pull this from invoices rather than estimating it.
Count from their start date, not from the resignation. Include the vacancy gap separately if the role sat empty.
Averaged across the ramp. Someone at 20 per cent output in week one and 90 per cent in week twelve averages roughly 50 per cent.
Accrued leave payout, final pay processing, exit interview time, IT and access off-boarding.
Overtime for the team covering the gap, temporary contractors, relocation, equipment, lost client revenue.
Sets the job mobility rate used to estimate departures. It does not change the cost, because no state publishes its own turnover cost data.
Used with the state rate to estimate how many people would change employer in a year.
How many people at roughly this salary leave in a year. Your own payroll figure beats any estimate. Use the estimate below if you do not have one.
Job mobility in Australia
7.2%
In a workforce of 200 people, that rate suggests roughly 14 would change employer in a year. Australian Bureau of Statistics, year to February 2026.
Job mobility counts people who moved to a different employer. It leaves out anyone who left and did not start another job, so it understates total separations.
Where the money goes
Recruitment
$19,000
Lost productivity during ramp-up
$10,962
Exit, admin and severance
$4,500
Other costs
$2,000
Total cost of this departure
$36,462
That is 38.4% of the role's annual salary.
At 10 departures a year at this salary level, the annual cost is $364,615.
The figures shown on load are a worked example for a role paying $95,000, not a benchmark. Replace every field with your own numbers.
How is the cost of employee turnover calculated?
Total turnover cost is the sum of four components: recruitment spend, the value of output lost while a replacement ramps up, exit and administration costs, and any remaining direct costs. Only the second component needs a formula. The other three are amounts you can pull from invoices and payroll.
| Component | How it is worked out | Where to find the number |
|---|---|---|
| Recruitment | Entered directly | Agency invoices, job board spend, assessment and screening fees |
| Lost productivity during ramp-up | (Annual salary ÷ 52) × weeks to full productivity × productivity shortfall | Payroll for the salary, the hiring manager for the ramp estimate |
| Exit, admin and severance | Entered directly | Final pay run, accrued leave balance, off-boarding time |
| Other costs | Entered directly | Overtime records, contractor invoices, relocation and equipment spend |
In the worked example above, a $95,000 role with a twelve-week ramp at 50 per cent average output produces $10,962 in lost productivity, which added to $19,000 recruitment, $4,500 exit costs and $2,000 other costs gives a total of $36,462, or 38.4 per cent of annual salary. Every one of those figures is an input you control.
What reduces turnover in the first place?
Global Great Place To Work® research across more than 1.3 million employees found people were 2.7 times more likely to stay when they said their work was meaningful. Here in Australia, our own most recent research shows the Trust Index™ Survey statement that best predicts whether someone will stay with a company is “I feel proud to tell people I work here.”
The reasons people stay are measurable, and they are things a leadership team can change.
Australian HR Institute survey data found most Australian organisations do not measure what turnover costs them, and even fewer look at why. If you want to know what your own people would say, that is what our employee survey measures.
FAQs
Where does the “1.5 to 2 times salary” figure come from?
As far as the published record goes, from a single survey respondent. The figure appears in the Australian HR Institute’s Turnover and Retention research report of August 2018, drawn from a survey of 501 AHRI members, where it is quoted as one respondent’s description of how their organisation works out turnover cost. It is not presented as a finding.
The same report found that 63 per cent of respondents said their organisation does not measure the financial cost of employee turnover at all.
We have not found an Australian study that establishes 1.5 to 2 times salary as a measured average. If one exists, we would like to see it. Until then, treat the figure as a rule of thumb that has been repeated often enough to sound like evidence, including inside a government calculator.
Why does the calculator not include a lost-knowledge figure?
Because there is no defensible way to price it from these inputs, and a number you cannot defend in a budget meeting is worse than no number. Institutional knowledge, weakened client relationships and the effect on the morale of everyone who stays are real costs, and they are usually larger than the ones above.
Treat the total this calculator produces as a floor rather than a full accounting. It captures what you can put on an invoice.
What is a reasonable turnover cost to expect?
It depends almost entirely on how long the role takes to fill and how long the replacement takes to reach full output, which is why this tool asks you rather than telling you. A frontline role with a two-week ramp and no agency fee might cost under 10 per cent of salary to replace. A specialist role with a three-month search and a six-month ramp can pass 100 per cent.
Run the calculation for your three highest-turnover roles rather than for an organisational average. Averages hide the roles that are costing you money.
Does the cost of turnover differ by state?
No Australian state or territory publishes turnover cost data of its own, so there is no state figure to give you. Two governments publish a cost assumption inside a free tool, and the two assumptions are 4.6 times apart.
| Government tool | Assumed cost per departure | Method | Cites a source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Victoria staff turnover calculator | 32.5% of annual salary | Annual wage × 1.3 on-cost loading × 0.25 | No |
| Northern Territory Government cost of turnover calculator | 150% of annual salary | Average salary × 1.5 | No |
Business Victoria’s staff turnover calculator works out to 32.5 per cent of annual salary per resignation, applying a 1.3 on-cost loading and then a 0.25 turnover multiplier. The Northern Territory Government’s cost of turnover calculator states that “the cost of replacing employees is around 1.5 times an employee’s salary”, or 150 per cent.
Neither figure is regional. Nothing in the Victorian formula is specific to Victoria: the 38-hour week it assumes is Commonwealth law under the National Employment Standards in the Fair Work Act 2009, and the on-cost loading is generic. The same is true of the Northern Territory multiplier. What differs between the two tools is which unsourced number each government chose, not anything about the states themselves.
Two official Australian tools disagree by a factor of 4.6 on the same question, and neither shows its working. Use them as the outer edges of a plausible range rather than as an answer, and put your own invoices into the calculator above.
What is the job mobility rate in your state?
The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded a national job mobility rate of 7.2 per cent in the year to February 2026, meaning just over 1.0 million people changed employer, down from 7.7 per cent the previous year. The rate ranged from 6.5 per cent in New South Wales to 11.1 per cent in the Northern Territory.
| State or territory | Job mobility rate, year to February 2026 |
|---|---|
| Northern Territory | 11.1% |
| Queensland | 8.3% |
| South Australia | 8.2% |
| Western Australia | 7.3% |
| Tasmania | 7.3% |
| Australian Capital Territory | 7.2% |
| Victoria | 6.9% |
| New South Wales | 6.5% |
| Australia | 7.2% |
Job mobility is not the same measure as your organisation’s turnover rate. It counts people who moved from one employer to another, as a share of everyone employed, and it leaves out anyone who left work without starting another job. Your own separations figure will usually be higher.
For comparison against your own organisation, the Australian HR Institute reported an average organisational turnover rate of 13.5 per cent in its June quarter 2026 Australian Work Outlook, down from 15.2 per cent in December 2025 and the lowest since it began tracking the measure in May 2023.
Last verified 13 August 2026. Turnover figures are updated when the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian HR Institute publish new data.
Sources
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Job mobility, February 2026, released 31 July 2026. National and state figures.
- Australian HR Institute, The cost of hiring a new employee, citing SHRM replacement cost research.
- Business Victoria, Staff turnover calculator.
- Northern Territory Government, Cost of turnover calculator.
- Australian HR Institute, Turnover and Retention research report, August 2018, survey of 501 AHRI members.
- Australian HR Institute, Quarterly Australian Work Outlook, June quarter 2026. YouGov survey of 606 senior business and HR decision-makers, fieldwork 5 to 11 April 2026. The full report is available to AHRI members.
- Fair Work Commission, National Employment Standards, maximum weekly hours, Fair Work Act 2009.
- Great Place To Work, Research: 3 Employee Experiences Most Likely to Drive Retention, 30 January 2024. Trust Index survey of more than 1.3 million United States employees.
Figures on this page are checked against their original sources on publication and rechecked when new data is released. If you believe a figure here is out of date or wrong, let us know and we will investigate. Email: alice.williams@greatplacetowork.com
