Your role as an HR professional includes staying on top of your company’s hiring needs and employee turnover rates. However, this has become increasingly more difficult in today’s quickly changing and unpredictable work environment. Many workers are also making significant changes, like moving to flexible work arrangements or leaving the workforce altogether. This year’s inflation and recession fears add another level of unpredictability.

Developing your annual hiring strategy can feel like a giant guessing game, in which you hope to outpace your company’s turnover rate.

Although turnover is a necessary part of doing business, when is your turnover rate too high?

Mercer surveys provide turnover trends across industries, job roles, and demographics. Our survey results are your key to identifying turnover trouble spots and planning ahead for future talent needs.

The 2022 US Mercer Turnover Survey and Canada Turnover Survey provide valuable insights into which jobs and industries show the highest turnover and explore how companies plan to respond with recruitment and internal growth plans.

Let’s dig in!

Workforce turnover insights for Canada

Canada’s turnover insights look slightly more positive than those in the US, but still show an upward trend in turnover rates across all industries. Here are some specific results from Mercer’s Canadian turnover survey.

Total head count trends in Canada

Over half of the Canadian organizations that participated in the survey plan to hire new staff in 2022. However, only 15% of organizations plan to increase their overall head count and 5% plan to decrease their overall head count.

More organizations in Canada are planning for high turnover rates than in the US, based on the difference between new hiring plans and those planning a head count increase.

Involuntary and voluntary turnover rates in Canada

Canada's average combined average involuntary and voluntary turnover rate was 18%, down from the last survey turnover rate of 21%. So, while the US turnover rates are increasing, Canadian organizations are seeing a decrease in turnover rates across industries.

As is true in the US, voluntary turnover rates in Canada are much higher than involuntary turnover rates:

• The average voluntary turnover rate in Canada during the latest survey period was 12.4%.
• The average involuntary turnover percentage in Canada during the latest survey period was 5.6%.

Canadian organizations saw the highest overall turnover rates in Logistics (24.0%), Consumer Goods (21.7%), and Retail and Wholesale (22.0%). The sectors with the lowest turnover rates were Energy (12.3%) and Insurance (12.7%). These trends closely resemble those of the US.

Respondents also reported low turnover rates among employees in more experienced and higher paid positions like executives and management than in blue- and white-collar roles.

Canadian survey results showed slightly lower voluntary turnover percentages among specific functions than did US turnover rates. Here is a glimpse of some voluntary turnover percentages:

• Executives: 3.5%
• Creative, Design and Media: 3.2% (the same percentage as in the US)
• Customer Service and Contact Center Operations: 6.9%
• Data Analytics: 2.3%
• Finance: 6.8%
• Human Resources: 7.9%
• Information Technology: 4.8%
• Sales, Marketing and Product Management: 8.1%

In Canada, the function with the highest voluntary turnover percentage is in production and skilled trades (9.3%). Quality Management and Real Estate Management, Property Development, and Investment both have the lowest turnover rate (1.5%). Interestingly, the Real Estate Management function also had the lowest voluntary turnover rate in the US.

What roles are most difficult to fill in Canada?

Of the 60% of Canadian companies who reported difficulty hiring or retaining employees, the Transportation sector is hurting the most. Surprisingly, health care services have the easiest time retaining employees, which is much different than in the US, where most health care organizations struggle to fill roles.

The top sectors where hiring is a challenge in Canada include:

• Banking and Financial Services
• Nonmanufacturing
• Insurance and Reinsurance
• High Tech
• Retail and Wholesale

While state-owned enterprises and nonprofits have the most significant challenge in filling roles, only 37.5% of joint-venture companies struggle.

Companies in these sectors should devise a hiring strategy that ensures these challenging roles are filled quickly..

Want more insights into managing turnover rates?

The full survey takes you deeper into these categories, providing more specific information on turnover rates experienced by companies this past year. Use our reliable data and real results instead of guesswork to build your 2023 hiring strategy.

For more in-depth data on this essential topic, consult the US Mercer Turnover Survey or the Canada Mercer Turnover Survey.

For the latest insights on how the workforce is changing, consult Mercer’s Workforce Movement survey.