North America, 2000
North America Council, 2000: By 2000, the annual cost of employee turnover in the supermarket industry exceeded the entire industry’s annual profit by 40%. The cost implications were huge. The U.S. Department of Labor estimated that it cost one-third of a new hire’s annual salary to replace an employee. This study found that the supermarket industry’s average annual turnover cost per store was about US$ 190,000. The result was lower profits as well as great potential for customer dissatisfaction. In this situation, the more employees retained, the lower the company’s turnover costs and the less the need to recruit and hire new employees.