What is the average employee absence rate in the US?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024 annual data), the average absence rate for full-time wage and salary workers is 3.2%. This means on any given day, about 3.2% of workers who were supposed to be at work were absent.

How much does employee absenteeism cost US employers?

The CDC Foundation estimates that productivity losses from absenteeism cost US employers $225.8 billion annually, or approximately $1,685 per employee per year.

Which industry has the highest absence rate?

Healthcare support occupations have the highest absence rate at 4.3%, followed by building and grounds cleaning/maintenance at 4.0%, and food preparation and serving at 3.8% (BLS, 2024).

How much does a single no-show cost a business?

A single no-show typically costs between $150–$300 when you factor in lost productivity, overtime pay for replacement coverage, and management time spent finding coverage. Circadian estimates unscheduled absenteeism costs $3,600 per hourly worker per year.

Employee No-Show Stats: 3.2% Absence Rate

Employee no-shows are not just a manager headache. They show up in absence data, overtime bills, thin coverage, and customer service problems you feel right away.

This page collects the numbers behind the problem: BLS absence rates, CDC employer cost estimates, industry benchmarks, practical no-show cost math, and source notes you can cite.

Employee no-show statistics infographic showing a shift coverage board, no-show ripple effects, absence rates, and cost benchmarks

Citation summary

Quote-ready stat: In 2024, the U.S. absence rate for full-time wage and salary workers was 3.2%, according to BLS Table 47. Healthcare support had the highest listed occupational absence rate at 4.3%, while the CDC Foundation estimates illness and injury-related productivity losses cost U.S. employers $225.8 billion per year, or $1,685 per employee.

Suggested citation: Turnozo, "Employee No-Show Stats: 3.2% Absence Rate," updated June 10, 2026. Source data from BLS Table 47, CDC Foundation, and cited workforce research.

Quick employee no-show statistics

3.2%: average U.S. absence rate for full-time wage and salary workers in 2024.
2.2%: illness and injury absence rate across all full-time workers.
1.0%: absence rate for other reasons, including personal and family responsibilities.
4.3%: healthcare support absence rate, the highest listed occupational rate in BLS Table 47.
4.0%: building and grounds cleaning absence rate.
3.8%: food preparation and serving absence rate.
4.0%: government worker absence rate, compared with 3.1% in the private sector.
$225.8 billion: CDC Foundation estimate for annual U.S. employer productivity losses from worker illness and injury.
$1,685: CDC Foundation estimate for annual absenteeism cost per employee.
$3,600: Circadian estimate for annual unscheduled absenteeism cost per hourly worker.
€175-350: practical cost range for one no-show in a small shift-based business when replacement overtime and manager time are included.
€27,000-54,000: annual cost range for a single location with three no-shows per week.

No-Show & Absenteeism Data Explorer

Interactive charts on absence rates, patterns, and costs.

National avg: 3.2%

BLS Table 47 (2024), CDC Foundation, Circadian, Kronos Workforce Institute

The big numbers

$225.8 billion

Total annual cost of absenteeism to US employers. That's productivity losses alone, before replacement coverage, overtime, or admin time. Source: CDC Foundation

$3,600

Annual cost of unscheduled absenteeism per hourly worker. For salaried employees, the figure is $2,650. The difference comes from overtime costs when replacing hourly shifts. Source: Circadian, "Absenteeism: The Bottom-Line Killer"

$1,685

Average cost of absenteeism per employee per year across all industries and worker types. Source: CDC Foundation / Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

3.2%

Average absence rate for all full-time wage and salary workers in the US (2024). That means on any given workday, about 1 in 31 employees who should be working is absent. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table 47, 2024 Annual Averages

Absence rates by industry (BLS, 2024)

All data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, 2024 annual averages. "Absence rate" means the percentage of full-time workers who were absent on an average workday.

Industry / Occupation	Absence Rate	Illness/Injury	Other Reasons
Healthcare support	4.3%	3.0%	1.3%
Community & social services	4.2%	2.7%	1.5%
Building & grounds cleaning	4.0%	3.1%	0.8%
Office & admin support	3.9%	2.8%	1.1%
Food preparation & serving	3.8%	2.7%	1.0%
Service occupations (all)	3.8%	2.7%	1.1%
Sales & office (all)	3.6%	2.5%	1.0%
Healthcare practitioners	3.5%	2.2%	1.3%
Production, transport, materials	3.4%	2.5%	0.9%
Total, all occupations	3.2%	2.2%	1.0%
Construction & extraction	3.0%	2.2%	0.8%
Manufacturing	2.8%	2.0%	0.8%
Management occupations	2.3%	1.5%	0.8%

Source: BLS Table 47. Absences from work by occupation and industry, 2024

Key takeaway: The industries most likely to use shift scheduling, including healthcare support, food service, cleaning, and retail-adjacent sales roles, all sit near or above the national average. These are also the industries where one missing person can break coverage fastest.

Absence rates by sector (BLS, 2024)

Sector	Absence Rate
Government workers	4.0%
Private sector	3.1%
Agriculture	2.8%
Construction	2.8%
Manufacturing	2.8%
Mining	2.3%

Source: BLS Table 47, 2024

The cost breakdown

What a single no-show costs

For a typical shift-based business with hourly workers earning €12–15/hour on 5–8 hour shifts:

Cost Category	Estimated Range
Lost productivity (unfilled shift)	€60–120
Overtime for replacement worker	€45–90
Manager time finding coverage	€20–40
Training/onboarding if temp hired	€50–100
Customer impact (slower service, lost sales)	Varies
Total per incident	€175–350

At 3 no-shows per week, that's €27,000–54,000 per year for a single location.

Absenteeism cost by company size

Company Size	Estimated Annual Cost
10 employees	€16,850
25 employees	€42,125
50 employees	€84,250
100 employees	€168,500

Based on CDC Foundation's $1,685/employee/year figure, converted at approximate USD/EUR rate.

No-Show Cost Calculator

See how much employee no-shows are costing your business each year.

Team size

Industry

No-show rate %

You're losing

$28,000

/year to no-shows

That's $28,000 walking out the door. Turnozo is $75/month.

Reduce no-show chaos

Why employees are absent

Top reasons for unplanned absences

Personal illness accounts for about 69% of measured absences (BLS: 2.2% illness/injury rate out of 3.2% total)
Family responsibilities: childcare, eldercare, family emergencies
Personal needs: appointments, errands, car trouble
Stress and burnout: increasingly cited in post-pandemic surveys, especially on teams with unstable shift patterns and poor rest windows. See the broader shift work statistics for the fatigue side of the problem
Disengagement: employees who do not feel valued are more likely to call out

The Monday/Friday effect

Employers consistently report higher absence rates on Mondays and Fridays, as well as before public holidays and major sporting events. This pattern suggests a portion of absenteeism is discretionary rather than illness-driven. If that pattern sounds familiar, the operational fix is usually not another warning. It is a better mix of attendance policy, earlier schedules, and cleaner backup coverage.

Source: SHRM Annual Survey on Employee Benefits and Absenteeism

Absenteeism by day of week

While the BLS doesn't publish day-of-week breakdowns, multiple employer surveys confirm:

Monday has the highest absence rate (~40% above average)
Friday has the second highest
Tuesday–Thursday have the lowest rates
The day after the Super Bowl can create a large spike; The Workforce Institute estimated 17.5 million U.S. workers missed work the Monday after Super Bowl LVIII (2024)

Sources: Kronos Workforce Institute; The Workforce Institute at UKG

Industry-specific no-show data

Restaurant industry

Average annual turnover rate: 79.6% over the past decade (Toast/BLS)
Food preparation & serving absence rate: 3.8% (BLS, 2024)
Quit rate in accommodation & food services: 3.9% as of 2024, down from peak of 5.8% in 2021-2022 (BLS JOLTS)
Labor costs typically represent 25–35% of restaurant revenue

If you run restaurants, this page pairs best with our deeper breakdowns on restaurant staffing statistics and how to reduce no-shows and call-outs, because the cost of an empty shift is rarely just the missing hours.

Retail

Sales & related occupations absence rate: 3.0% (BLS, 2024)
Office & admin support (including retail back-office): 3.9% (BLS, 2024)
Holiday-season no-shows can run above normal because demand rises while employees juggle travel, school breaks, and second jobs

Healthcare

Healthcare support absence rate: 4.3%, the highest listed occupational rate (BLS, 2024)
Healthcare practitioners: 3.5% (BLS, 2024)
Lost worktime rate in healthcare support: 2.3%, meaning workers lose 2.3% of scheduled hours (BLS, 2024)

Cleaning & maintenance

Building & grounds cleaning absence rate: 4.0% (BLS, 2024)
Illness/injury accounts for 3.1%, the highest illness-driven absence rate listed in the table
Multi-site cleaning businesses face compounding issues: a no-show at one site requires reassigning from another

What reduces absenteeism

Scheduling software impact

Treat vendor claims about 15-20% lower no-shows as directional, not benchmark data. The stronger case is operational: earlier schedules, documented swaps, reminders, and backup coverage reduce the number of preventable gaps managers have to solve by text.

Other interventions

Flexible scheduling: allowing shift swaps gives employees an alternative to calling out
2-week advance scheduling: employees with more notice have fewer conflicts
Return-to-work interviews: asking about an absence gives managers a chance to spot patterns early
Progressive discipline: clear policies reduce chronic absenteeism, but punishing callouts the same as no-shows backfires

The pages worth reading next depend on what is broken in your operation. If you are firefighting last-minute gaps, start with how to handle last-minute shift changes. If one missing person keeps wrecking the day, read if one call-out breaks your day, you have a staffing problem. If the issue is chronic unreliability, go deeper on the real cost of employee no-shows.

Overtime and coverage costs

Almost 50% of overtime is used specifically to cover employee absences (Circadian)
The estimated loss of productivity from unplanned absences reaches nearly 40% because the absent worker's tasks do not fully get done even with coverage (Circadian)
More than half of large employers (1,000+ employees) still use manual or no systematic process to manage absenteeism (SHRM)

What is actually driving your no-shows?

Pick the pattern that looks most familiar. This helps you focus on the fix instead of treating every absence the same way.

Question 1 of 333%

When do unplanned absences hit you most?

3 questions left

Warning

Treating every absence like a discipline problem is lazy management. Some no-shows come from weak policy. Others come from bad schedules and zero backup coverage. Mix them together and you fix nothing.

How to use these statistics

If you manage shift-based employees, here's what this data means for you:

Benchmark your team. If your absence rate is consistently above 3.2% (the national average), you have a systemic issue, not just bad luck.
Calculate your real cost. Use the $3,600/hourly worker/year figure as a starting point, then multiply by your team size.
Focus on your industry. If you're in food service (3.8%), healthcare (4.3%), or cleaning (4.0%), expect above-average challenges.
Invest in prevention. A 20% reduction from scheduling software on a 20-person team saves roughly €7,000–11,000/year.

Source table

Fact	Value	Source
Average absence rate, all full-time wage and salary workers	3.2%	BLS Table 47, 2024
Illness and injury absence rate	2.2%	BLS Table 47, 2024
Absence rate for other reasons	1.0%	BLS Table 47, 2024
Healthcare support absence rate	4.3%	BLS Table 47, 2024
Food preparation and serving absence rate	3.8%	BLS Table 47, 2024
Building and grounds cleaning absence rate	4.0%	BLS Table 47, 2024
Employer productivity losses from worker illness and injury	$225.8B/year	CDC Foundation
Absenteeism cost per employee	$1,685/year	CDC Foundation
Unscheduled absenteeism cost per hourly worker	$3,600/year	Circadian, "Absenteeism: The Bottom-Line Killer"
One no-show in a small shift-based business	€175-350	Turnozo calculation

Methodology notes

BLS absence rates come from Current Population Survey annual averages for 2024. BLS defines the absence rate as the ratio of workers with a job but not at work to total full-time wage and salary employment for that group. Illness/injury and other-reason rates may not sum perfectly in every row because of rounding.

Turnozo's no-show cost examples are practical estimates for shift-based teams. The single-incident range combines the missing shift's scheduled wage value, replacement overtime where needed, and manager time spent finding coverage. The annual location example multiplies three incidents per week by 52 weeks. It does not include lost sales, refunds, slower service, customer churn, or the cost of burning out reliable employees who always get asked to cover.

Sources

All statistics on this page are sourced from:

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Table 47: Absences from work, 2024 Annual Averages
CDC Foundation. Worker Illness and Injury Costs US Employers $225.8 Billion Annually
Circadian. "Absenteeism: The Bottom-Line Killer" (workforce research report)
SHRM. Society for Human Resource Management annual surveys
Toast / BLS. Restaurant industry turnover data
The Workforce Institute at UKG. Day-of-week and event-based absence patterns

Last updated: June 2026. We review and update this page quarterly.

No-shows are a scheduling problem at their core. Our complete scheduling guide covers how to build schedules that minimize them.