The 90-Day Breakup: Why New Hires Are Quitting Sooner Than Ever.

It’s a wild time to be looking for a job. On one hand, the market feels brutal. Candidates are sending out hundreds of resumes and sitting through dozens of interviews just to get a “maybe.” On the other hand, once they actually land the job, they aren’t sticking around.

In 2025, 15% of new hires were gone within three months. That’s a massive jump from just 6% recorded in 2024 (Source: Employ, 2025 Quarterly Insights). We’re talking about people who spent months fighting for a seat at the table, only to stand up and walk away before their first 90-day review.

What’s going wrong?

The “Safety Net” Job

Ironically, the tough market is actually making retention worse. When someone has been unemployed for 15 weeks or more, which is a reality for 4 in 10 applicants, they stop looking for the “perfect” fit and start looking for a paycheck (Source: Korn Ferry Leadership Insights). They accept a job they aren’t thrilled about, a “step job,” just to stop the bleeding.

But they don’t stop looking. If a better offer from a company they actually liked finally trickles in a month later, they’re gone. For these employees, the new job wasn’t a career move; it was a holding pattern.

Changing Lanes and Broken Promises

It isn’t always the employee’s fault, though. A lot of companies are in a state of constant whiplash. A firm might hire a dozen people for a big new project, only to shelve the entire initiative two weeks later because of a shift in the economy or a change in leadership.

Then there’s the flexibility trap. An employee signs an offer letter thinking they’ll be remote three days a week, only to arrive on day one and find out the policy just changed to a full return to office mandate. When the reality of the desk doesn’t match the promise of the interview, the honeymoon phase turns into a “get me out of here” phase.

The Cost of Cutting Corners

When hiring managers are stressed or rushed, they take shortcuts. They focus on whether a candidate can do the job, but they stop checking if the candidate should do the job.

If you compress the hiring timeline and skip the deep conversations about culture and expectations, you end up with a mismatch. Interestingly, if a worker survives the first 90 days, they’ll likely stay. First-year turnover rates actually fell to 12.1% in 2025 from 23.7% in 2024 (Source: Employ survey data). The problem is that many firms are failing the “first impression” test early on.

How to Close the Gap

The fix isn’t complicated, but it takes effort:

• Stop Selling, Start Telling: Be honest about the role. If the job is high stress or the strategy is shifting, say so. It’s better to lose a candidate in the interview than to lose an employee in the first month.
• The 30 Day Pulse Check: Don’t wait three months to see how someone is doing. By the time an employee says “I’m leaving,” they’ve already checked out mentally.
• Keep Your Promises: If you promised flexibility or a specific project, do everything in your power to deliver it. Nothing kills a new hire’s energy faster than feeling like they were sold a bill of goods.

The first 90 days should be full of energy and potential. If they’re ending in a resignation instead, it’s time to look at what’s happening between the “Yes” and the first day on the job.