Nearly two-thirds of US employers reported annual turnover of 10 percent or higher in 2025, according to a new Gallagher workforce trends report. Most of those same organizations expect revenue to grow by 2027 without a proportionate increase in headcount. That gap shapes what employees experience at work and what they need from their benefits.

Gallagher's 2026 US Workforce Trends Report - Talent Benchmarks captures those pressures in detail. Drawn from 3,717 US organizations surveyed between January and March 2026, the report covers employee engagement, retention, and the expanding role of AI in HR operations.

When growth outpaces capacity

The survey found that 61 percent of employers anticipate revenue growth by 2027, but only half expect headcount to grow at the same pace. The result is a workforce expected to absorb expanding output with relatively stable staffing. The report ties burnout risk to this structural gap - not to short-term stress, but to the sustained difference between production expectations and the capacity available to meet them.

Retention is feeling that strain. Almost three in five employers ranked it as a top HR priority, and roughly two in five placed it among their top operational concerns. That overlap shows retention has moved beyond HR program management to become a cost and continuity issue.

When turnover exceeded plan in 2025, the effects were immediate. Unbudgeted replacement costs, lost institutional knowledge, and redistributed workloads added pressure to remaining staff. Those conditions tend to show up in benefits utilization - in mental health claims and absence management - before they appear in turnover reports.

That pattern is reinforced by separate data from NFP's 2026 US Benefits Trend Report, which found average employer spending on mental health resources fell roughly 7 percent year-over-year, even as financial and mental strain among employees climbed.

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