Data from Multiplier reveals which markets offer relative stability for cross-border hiring, and which may leave employers bogged down in backfills
Employers looking to recruit in markets including India and the Philippines face a ‘turnover tax’ due to high rates of churn for junior hires, data from Multiplier reveals.
Over 20% of hires in these markets are replacements for departing staff. This is more than double that of other, more stable markets, where the rate of replacement hiring sits at around 10%.
In markets with high churn, a greater proportion of recruitment budgets are spent on backfilling roles rather than organic expansion.
This is turnover tax: the hidden financial and operational cost of talent churn when hiring across borders.
Countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, and the United States, meanwhile, are among those to offer more stable retention and a better platform for net headcount growth.
Churn or stability? Execution or decision?
To understand hiring patterns across the globe, we reviewed all cross-border employment contracts on Multiplier’s platform between July 2025 and June 2026, for the 20 largest global hiring markets by transaction volume.
The data revealed locations where there are higher and lower levels of attrition respectively, and where the level of hires vary from low seniority to high seniority.
We identified high-churn markets where the share of replacement hires — employees or contractors recruited to fill an existing role left vacant by a departure ( be it voluntary resignation, termination, or contract end) — is greater than 20%.
Markets were also split depending into ‘decision’ hubs, where the share of director-level hires sits above a global baseline of 11% on Multiplier’s platform, or ‘‘execution’ hubs, where the share is below the 11% baseline.
This allowed us to identify four categories and their defining characteristics.
- Continuous replacement: High-churn execution hubs (e.g. India, The Philippines)
- Leadership risk: High-churn decision hubs (none in top 20)
- Steady delivery: Low-churn decision hubs (e.g. Malaysia, Indonesia)
- Secure governance: Low-churn decision hubs (e.g. Canada, United States, Singapore)
Markets that show signs of continuous replacement and leadership risk may be susceptible to turnover tax.
This tax can be volume-driven, where budgets are spent on continuously backfilling of entry-to-mid level roles; or seniority-driven, where the cost of replacing high-level decision-makers is substantial..
Although none of our 20 largest hiring destinations by volume fall under the category of leadership risks, this does not preclude other countries from theoretically being included. This is explained in more detail below.
What is turnover tax?
Understanding these market characteristics can help talent, finance, and business leaders take an informed view of where and when they choose to hire abroad.
Employers hiring across borders should be aware of the markets where turnover tax may be present.
In India, for example, a quarter of all hires (25%) made through Multiplier’s platform for the period were replacements. Just 4.8% were director-level or above, indicating a high turnover of junior staff in this market.
Similarly, in the Philippines, 22% of hires were replacements, and just 1.5% were director-level seniority roles or above.
The findings align with existing labor analysis. In India, while overall attrition is trending down, it still remains high, sitting at 16.2% for the year of 2025. Employers in the Philippines are making a “deliberate attempt” to improve retention rates.
For employers, this problem can lead to an excessive share of recruitment budgets being spent on backfilling a turnover of junior hires, rather than on net headcount growth.
This may slow plans for business expansion and create operational friction, hindering plans for delivery and execution.
The cost of leadership exits
Another challenge comes in the form of markets where there is a leadership risk, i.e. decision hubs with higher proportion of director-level hires, and notable levels of attrition.
As noted, none of the top 20 countries by transaction volume on Multiplier’s platform met the criteria for this group.
We believe that other markets across the globe will fall into this group. However, there is not enough data to validate this theory based on Multiplier’s platform insights alone.
Instead of theorising which countries may fall under this category, we have instead opted to leave the group empty and revisit this in future Talent Trend reports.
However, employers planning to build leadership hubs across borders should still identify markets with high leadership attrition. This may be driven by factors such as senior headhunting, burnout, board misalignment, cultural clashes, or vesting friction.
Losing even one director-level hire within the first year may even be more expensive than replacing several junor hires, because of the scale of recruitment fees, severance, and lost strategic momentum involved.
Hidden gems: Which markets offer stability?
In other locations, the risk of attrition for both junior and senior staff is far lower.
Steady delivery markets include Malaysia, where just 5% of hires on Multiplier’s platform are director-level roles, and only 10% of hires are replacements. In Indonesia, 44% of hires are under 30, and just 10% of hires are replacements.
These locations offer scalable execution capacity with a lower threat of the attrition costs seen in other hubs. They may therefore offer ideal locations to maximize headcount spend.
Secure governance markets include Singapore, where 31% of all hires are director-level or above, only 20% are aged under 30, and 11% are replacements; or the US, where 22% of hires are director-level, only 23% are aged under 30, and 9% are replacement hires.
Countries like this deliver more reliable return-on-investment for leadership hiring thanks to their relative stability.
Recruitment budgets are more likely to be spent on funding further strategic expansion rather than costly leadership backfills.
The Canada conundrum & conclusions
Employers looking to expand globally should also consider that the speed of exit varies significantly from market to market.
For example, in Canada, a notable pattern is playing out.
Here, 2% of hiring goes toward replacing departing staff , the lowest replacement rate in our global dataset.
However, we are giving it a specific focus, separate from other secure governance markets, on the basis of its median tenure for departing staff. At six months, it sits much lower than other countries including India (10 months).
Employers hiring in Canada may therefore be susceptible to rapid early-exits, if one is to occur. I.e., if a new hire is going to fail or leave, they do so quickly. In such markets, early onboarding and cultural alignment in the first six months are therefore critical to prevent immediate drop-offs.
More broadly, employers planning cross-border hiring, whether for junior-level staff or more senior hires, should consider whether their proposed destinations carry a greater risk of instability and attrition — or risk burning through their recruitment budgets thanks to the turnover tax.
About Talent Trends
Learn more about Talent Trends, our data set, and full methodology & limitations, here.
To maintain statistical rigor, metrics are normalized to USD using daily exchange rates and aggregated on a rolling quarterly cadence. We enforce a strict sample threshold of n50 for all country-level and role-level reporting, and all growth rates are presented as percentage changes against baseline periods rather than absolute headcount counts. Standardized job titles are mapped to international occupational frameworks (O*NET) rather than internal customer role names.
