Turnover Cost: Waiters and Waitresses, Iowa (2025)
Verified cost of employee turnover for the selected Waiters and Waitresses population in Iowa, United States, drawn from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025-may).
Waiters and Waitresses · Iowa, United States
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Estimated from a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics annual mean wage of $26,940 for Waiters and Waitresses in Iowa, United States (2025-may), multiplied by the 0.5×–2× cost of replacing an employee reported by SHRM and Gallup. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the wage, not the cost — the range is a planning estimate, and a real figure depends on time-to-fill, ramp-up, and lost productivity.
How Waiters and Waitresses compares in Iowa, United States
Annual mean wage — the input to the estimate above, compared directly rather than as a derived range. See all 33 industries.
What this means
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an annual mean wage of $26,940 for servers in Iowa as of May 2025. Using SHRM's replacement-cost research, which finds that replacing an employee costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary, the estimated cost to replace one of these workers falls between $13,500 and $53,900. This range is a planning figure; the actual cost depends on how long it takes to hire and train a replacement, as well as lost productivity during the transition.
Estimated cost of turnover: Waiters and Waitresses vs regional average
| Measure | Waiters and Waitresses | Regional average |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated cost of turnover | $26,940 | $75,472 |