How Loyal Are Employees In Your City?

According to analysis conducted by Homebase, the #1 market for job-hoppers is Denver, and the city with employees who stayed the longest in their jobs is Boston.

Why Employee Turnover Matters

Local small business owners and managers across the country are always in a war for talent. And nowhere is it more evident than in this new analysis of 30 cities. As a manager of a restaurant, bar, store, or other local business that provides life to neighborhoods, small business owners and managers are constantly looking for employees to fill roles.

Front-of-house staff and back-of-house staff are frequently switching jobs. And this turnover means those who run businesses constantly have job openings that need to be filled. The Homebase report found that the national average stay in an hourly job is 202 days, or less than 7 months.  Every city in the survey has an average significantly less than 365 days, meaning the average hourly employee across the country leaves their job within a year.

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Not surprisingly, with turnover that high, Homebase also surveyed employers of hourly workers and found that they expect to make approximately two hires in the next month or two. If one employee takes 20 hours to hire and an employer might hire 12 new individuals per year, that’s 240 hours per year! Managers and owners are spending six full work-weeks of hours just on hiring. “Your employees are your business.  

Local business owners know that hiring great individuals and retaining them is critical to their business’s success,” said John Waldmann, co-founder and CEO of Homebase.  “Finding and interviewing candidates can take a lot of time but is an investment in the future. When you get hiring right, you can spend your time doing what you love and watch your business thrive.” In conjunction with the survey, the Homebase Guide to Hiring Hourly Employees spells out how local small businesses in any city can attract and keep talent.

Hourly Employee Turnover by City

According to the Homebase analysis, here are the average days an employee stays at their job in 30 major US markets.

‍Metro AreaAverage Days at Job

‍1. Denver-Aurora, CO MSA171.1

2. Austin-Round Rock, TX MSA171.5

3. Orlando-Kissimmee, FL MSA174.2

4. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA180.1

5. Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN MSA185.7

6. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA MSA190.3

7. Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA191.0

8. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA191.7

9. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX MSA194.2

10. Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, CA MSA198.2

11. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA201.0

12. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA MSA201.7

13. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL202.8

14. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC MSA205.0

15. St. Louis, MO-IL MSA205.4

16. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA206.0

17. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA206.4

18. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA206.6

19. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA MSA206.7

20. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA208.0

21. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MSA208.0

22. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA MSA208.4

23. Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI MSA210.4

24. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA MSA210.5

25. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA211.1

26. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ MSA213.9

27. New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA MSAOrlando-Kissimmee, FL MSA215.4

28. Columbus, OH MSA216.2

29. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA MSA219.4

30. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH MSA237.3

Our Methodology

Homebase provides employee management and time tracking software to over 60,000 businesses across the country. Over 1 million hourly workers have used Homebase at their job.  With our software, employers add the names of their employees, either by integrating with their point-of-sale system or by adding them manually.  Homebase can see when a new employee starts work at an employer and when they stop working at that employer.  

The data set includes employees who are currently employed or have a specific known departure date. With that data, we analyzed the tenure of employees across all Homebase merchants, which are spread across the country.  Since our data is all organized by the location of the business, we know in what ZIP code each small business is located.  We grouped businesses by their Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA).  We then found the average stay at a job for each MSA.  (Note: We only looked at employers that pay at least the minimum wage of $7.75.)  We then just looked at the top 30 largest MSAs in order to have a large enough sample for each MSA.  We then ranked the MSAs from longest to shortest average stay.