A good employee hands in their notice. You did not see it coming, and you are already working out who takes over their files, how long hiring will take and how to keep the rest of the team from drowning.
Most of what that costs never appears on the job posting. In a company of 20 or 50 people, it shows up fast.
How much does it cost to replace an employee?
Gallup estimates that replacing an employee costs between half and twice their annual salary, and calls that a conservative estimate. For someone earning $60,000, that is $30,000 to $120,000.
The range comes from US research and swings widely by role. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not an invoice every Quebec employer will receive.
Where the hidden costs of turnover sit
The spending does not stop at the job ad.
- Hiring. Posting, screening, interviews and the managers' hours behind them.
- Training. Onboarding, and the colleagues who stop their own work to show the job.
- Lost output. The weeks before the new person is up to speed.
- Reshuffling. Tasks handed around while the seat is empty.
- The team. Overload, fatigue and sometimes disengagement among the people who stay.
Then there is what walks out the door with the person, their experience. In a small team it is often the heaviest loss. None of these costs arrives with an invoice, which is why they rarely show up in the financial statements.
A floor figure you can defend
For a number that survives a budget meeting, start from three costs you already know. The weeks the seat stays empty, the weeks the replacement needs to reach full speed and what you paid to hire.
Take a $60,000 role that sits vacant for eight weeks. The replacement needs twelve weeks to reach full output, and hiring costs $3,000. That departure costs at least $19,150, or 32% of the salary, before counting managers' time or lost knowledge.
Our employee turnover cost calculator runs the same math on your numbers.
Hiring in Quebec in 2026
123,700
vacant positions in Quebec in the second quarter of 2026
ISQ
33,500
vacant positions in Montreal
ISQ
3.1%
job vacancy rate in Quebec
ISQ
According to the Institut de la statistique du Québec, the vacancy rate has halved since 2022, but the number of open positions is almost exactly where it was a year earlier.
Not every employer faces the same shortage. But when hiring takes months, knowing why people leave matters as much as hiring faster.
What five departures in one year cost
Take a 20-person company with an average salary of $50,000. Five people leave during the year.
Even the conservative case equals two and a half salaries.
Five departures on an average headcount of 20 is a 25% turnover rate. The rate alone does not tell you who is leaving. New hires? One team? Your most experienced people? Our guide to the employee turnover rate formula shows how to break it down.
Why do employees leave?
Pay matters, but it does not explain everything. Lack of recognition, a stalled career, an unmanageable workload or a strained relationship with a manager all weigh on the decision.
Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 found that only 21% of Canadian employees are engaged at work, based on data collected in 2025. The rest are not all job hunting, but engagement is worth tracking before it turns into resignations.
Do you know why your people stay, and not only why they leave?
Five ways to reduce employee turnover
- Listen before someone leaves. One-on-ones surface frustrations nobody suspected.
- Fix onboarding. The first weeks set expectations and build a sense of belonging.
- Back your managers. Nobody should handle engagement and team issues alone.
- Clarify roles. Clear expectations remove a lot of daily friction.
- Measure and adjust. Tracking departures shows you where to act. Good exit interview questions tell you why people went.
Understand before you replace
When someone leaves, the first reflex is to fill the seat fast. That is normal. Operations have to keep running.
But when departures keep repeating, I think it is worth stepping back. Is it really a hiring problem? Are expectations clear? Do managers get the support they need?
At Inlead RH, we help growing companies understand what is going on, structure their HR practices and support their managers. That is the work of an organizational diagnostic. Hiring matters. Building a place people want to stay matters just as much.
Sources
- Gallup (2019), This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion.
- Institut de la statistique du Québec (2026), Les postes vacants au Québec par trimestre, in French.
- Gallup (2026), State of the Global Workplace, Canada data.
