In France, roughly one permanent contract in five is terminated during the probation period, and more than a third do not make it past the first year (DARES). On a €42,000 salary, a departure at month six costs close to €58,000. Early turnover is not bad luck, it is a symptom. Here is where it leaks, and how to fix it.
Updated 17 September 2026 · 9 min read
Early turnover covers departures that happen within the first six to twelve months after hiring, whether the employee walks (resignation, probation ended on their side) or the company does (probation not confirmed, dismissal). It is tracked separately from overall turnover because it tells a different story: someone leaving after three years is about career growth, someone leaving after three months is about hiring, promise and integration.
The formula is simple: departures before 12 months of tenure ÷ hires over the period × 100. A startup that hired 20 people in a year and lost 5 of them before their first anniversary has a 25% early turnover rate.
Key point: early turnover measures the quality of your hiring → onboarding chain. Overall turnover measures the quality of your employee experience over time. Both can be managed, but not with the same levers.
More than most founders think, and the trend is not improving:
One detail matters: between late 2020 and early 2022, it was mostly employees who ended their probation. Since then, employers have taken back the initiative (DARES, 2024). In plain terms, companies hire people they let go three months later. That is not a market problem, it is a process problem.
Fifteen years in recruitment and a stint in-house at a scale-up taught me one thing: an early departure rarely has a single cause, but it almost always has one of these six.
Most companies look for the cause in onboarding. It often sits upstream. A job description written in ten minutes, an interview process that never tests the real job, a salary disclosed late or never: all seeds of an early exit. Half of candidates say recruiters rarely or never get back to them (Hellowork, 2025). Someone who went through a sloppy process arrives with their trust already dented.
The best tool against early turnover is therefore an honest job brief: what the person will actually do in the first six months, what they will not do, with whom, and how success will be measured. Sell the role, yes. Disguise it, no.
Far more than the salary paid. French studies put the cost of a failed hire between €30,000 and €150,000 depending on seniority (Manpower, HR Voice, Opensourcing, via Welcome to the Jungle). The worked example below says more than a range:
| Cost item | Example: €42,000 gross salary, exit at month 6 | What usually goes uncounted |
|---|---|---|
| Sourcing and selection | ≈ €2,600 of recruiter and manager time + ≈ €2,400 in job ads | Interview hours from operational staff, never budgeted |
| Loaded salary over the period | ≈ €4,800/month × 6 = €28,800 | Paid for a ramp-up that will never pay back |
| Training and onboarding | 15 to 25% of annual salary ≈ €8,200 | Buddy and manager time, taken from their own output |
| Lost productivity | ≈ €7,200 | The seat vacant a second time, projects slipping |
| Total | ≈ €57,700, close to 1.4 times the annual salary | Employer brand not included: an early exit gets talked about, internally and on Glassdoor |
Orders of magnitude from the case costed by Welcome to the Jungle. For a €70,000 senior role, or a sales role with a long cycle, the bill easily doubles.
For a 50-person startup hiring 15 to 20 people a year, a 20% early turnover rate means 3 to 4 departures, i.e. €150,000 to €230,000 a year gone. That is a senior recruiter's full-time salary, or a full year of employer branding.
Early turnover plays out over a nine-month window, from signature to month six. Four steps, four goals.
Before signing
Honest job brief, scorecard, structured interviews, salary disclosed early. Avoid the miscast instead of managing it.
D-30 → D0
Active preboarding: a note from the manager, equipment ready, the first week's agenda sent before arrival.
D1 → Month 3
Written 30-60-90 goals, a buddy, a weekly manager check-in, formal feedback at day 30 and day 60. No surprises at the probation review.
Month 3 → 6
A first project that matters, a career conversation at month six, dated promises. This is when an employee decides whether they can picture themselves staying.
Five metrics are enough, tracked quarterly and by team:
One last benchmark: France has 8% engaged employees, against 12% in Europe (Gallup, 2026). Early turnover is the fast-forward version of that number. What reduces it (role clarity, a present manager, regular feedback) is exactly what lifts long-term engagement. For more on metrics, see measuring employee experience.
FAQ
There is no official standard, but national benchmarks give the scale: about one permanent contract in five ends during probation and more than a third before year one, across all profiles (DARES). For managers and professionals, the rate of exits before one year is around 19%. For a startup or scale-up, aiming for under 10% of departures before 12 months is demanding but achievable with structured hiring and a paced onboarding.
The most frequent causes are the gap between the role as sold and the real job, hiring without objective criteria, no contact between signature and day one, an unavailable manager and no feedback before the end-of-probation review. Since 2022, DARES notes that employers initiate the termination more often than employees, which points first to hiring quality.
French studies put the cost between €30,000 and €150,000 depending on seniority (Manpower, HR Voice, Opensourcing). For a €42,000 gross salary and an exit at month six, the detailed calculation by Welcome to the Jungle comes to close to €58,000 once sourcing, loaded salary, training and lost productivity are added, roughly 1.4 times the annual salary.
Start by measuring: departures before 12 months over 24 months, at what point, initiated by whom. Then act on the three fast levers: an honest job description and a scorecard to hire right, a preboarding that keeps the link between signature and day one, and a 30-60-90 plan with two formal feedback sessions before probation ends. Since managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement (Gallup), equip them first.
Overall turnover divides all departures in a year by average headcount. Early turnover isolates departures before 12 months of tenure and divides them by hires over the period. The first measures retention over time, the second the quality of the hiring and onboarding chain. A decent overall turnover can hide a high early turnover, which is why both are worth tracking.
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