With high demand for labor and heightened worker attrition, certain employers feel the burn during the hot summer months.
Summer paints a vivid picture. For many Americans, it’s a season of relaxation and adventure. But for employers, especially those in retail and leisure and hospitality, it’s a period of heightened labor demand and a less-visible struggle with high worker turnover.
The rate of employee turnover in the United States averages 3.14 percent during the months of September through May. But in June, July, and August, it rises to 3.56 percent.
Retail (4.6 percent) and leisure and hospitality (4.28 percent), have the highest rates of attrition of any of the 14 sectors we examined.1We define summer as the months of June through September. All other months are classified as rest of year. Turnover rate is reached by dividing the number of employees who left an organization by the average number of employees during the same period, multiplied by 100. Both sectors are heavily dependent on consumer spending, discretionary income, and large teams of service workers.
And while the summer turnover spike occurs in sectors across the board, the labor-intensive leisure and hospitality sector experiences one of the biggest jumps, behind only education, making staffing even more challenging for employers in this sector. Retail, by contrast, has one of the smallest summer increases.
We analyzed ADP payroll data for 5 years to learn what was behind hot summer turnover and these sectoral differences. We found links to job type, worker age, and pay.
Fewer hours, higher turnover
Part-time workers have substantially higher rates of turnover (4.81 percent) than their full-time colleagues (2.79 percent) in non-summer months.
Come summer, part-time attrition rises even more, by 0.77 percentage points to 5.58 percent. This increase is more than double that among full-time workers (0.35 percentage points).
This pattern reflects the inherent volatility of part-time employment, particularly during summer, when students cycle in and out of the labor market and seasonal jobs.
In leisure and hospitality, 48 percent of workers are part-time, which helps explain the sector’s summertime spike in turnover. Retail, where the share of part-timers is 28 percent, is less affected.
But in both sectors, part-time workers stay with employers for less than a year on average.
Younger workers, more turnover
Employment patterns for young workers—those aged 15 through 28—are remarkably volatile, especially in summer, when turnover in this group jumps 1.29 percentage points, to 6.85 percent, more than any other age group.
But that’s not the whole story. While workers 15 to 28 make up 15 percent of the total workforce, they account for 31 percent of workers in leisure and hospitality, and 29 percent in retail.
Lower wages, higher turnover
Entry-level positions, which we define as those paying $30,000 or less, have the highest non-summer turnover, at 5.98 percent, a rate that rises to 6.99 percent during the summer. This was the largest seasonal fluctuation of any income group.
By contrast, people earning $101,000 or more have a non-summer turnover rate of only 1.6 percent, which rises just 0.11 percentage points to 1.71 in summer.
This income effect helps explain sector-level differences. Annual pay averages less than $40,000 in leisure and hospitality and less than $50,000 in retail.
Fewer visitors, more turnover
In summer, leisure and hospitality turnover in the 10 most heavily touristed states is actually lower (4.61 percent) than in states where the economy is least dependent on visitors (7.69 percent)2.New York, Florida, California, Nevada, Texas, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Arizona. The bottom 10 states for tourism were West Virginia, North Dakota, Vermont, Mississippi, South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, Delaware, Montana, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, and New Hampshire (with several states tied in the rankings).
Given tourism’s important economic role in these highly visited states, employment in leisure and hospitality likely isn’t as seasonal as it might be elsewhere.
Retail shows the opposite pattern. Summer turnover is slightly higher in popular tourist destinations (4.56 percent) than in less-popular ones (4.13 percent).
This industry-specific geographic pattern reveals how local economies and seasonal demands differently affect workforce stability.
The takeaway
Retaining part-time staff can be a major challenge for service sectors that rely heavily on seasonal staffing.
While retail trade and leisure and hospitality both face increased consumer demand during the summer months, the latter’s reliance on younger, lower-paid, and part-time employees leads to more pronounced worker churn, particularly in states where tourism isn’t a major economic driver. Retail, with its larger share of full-time workers and higher average pay, experiences more moderate seasonal fluctuations.
Recognizing heightened summer turnover risk, particularly among younger, newer, and lower-paid employees, can help employers develop targeted retention strategies.
