BambooHR Research: Nearly 1 in 4 Educators Considering Leaving Amid Signs of a “Low-Hire, High-Fire” Era

Education hiring is down roughly 23% since H1 2024, and the involuntary share of turnover is at a six-year high.

DRAPER, Utah, Sept. 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BambooHR®, the leading People Intelligence Platform for small and mid-sized businesses, today released a new education workplace report, Education’s Low-Hire, High-Fire Era: How Burnout and Budget Cuts Are Reshaping the Workforce, which found that involuntary terminations made up 38% of all education turnover in the first half of 2026. This represents the highest first-half share in six years of platform data.

Over the same period, education hiring fell by roughly 23% compared with H1 2024. At the same time, nearly one in four educators surveyed (24%) say they are seriously considering leaving the profession altogether. The report draws on BambooHR platform data from K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and other education organizations, as well as a survey of education professionals.

What is happening to hiring and turnover in education?
Among educators who left their jobs, the share who were let go rather than quitting rose from 29% in H1 2024 to 38% in H1 2026. Education professionals also report feeling budget pressure directly: 70% of education leaders and 60% of educators surveyed say federal funding cuts have made their work extremely difficult over the last year.

“Schools are being asked to absorb budget cuts without losing good people or letting quality slip, and that isn't possible,” said Nicole Csiszar, Senior Director of HR Services at BambooHR. “When staff is cut, the work doesn't go away with them; it lands on whoever is left. That's why I'd read these findings as one story rather than two: a record share of departures were the employer’s decision, and nearly a quarter of those still in the classroom are considering leaving. A staffing cut shows up in the budget right away, but the exhaustion and burnout it leaves behind last much longer.”

Burnout leads the reasons educators give for leaving
Among the one in four educators considering leaving the profession, 59% name burnout as their reason. Leaders report seeing it as well. Among education leaders surveyed, 85% say they are more concerned about their staff's mental health than they were two years ago, and language about mental health and employee wellbeing appeared in 4.14% of education job posts in 2025, up from 1.27% in 2019.

However, the report found that educators' willingness to recommend where they work is growing rather than declining. Education's employee net promoter score grew 3.9% year over year in H1 2026, reaching 38.6.

Education has embraced ed tech, but not AI
What schools ask of educators is shifting as well. Job descriptions show which skills they now expect the role to cover: instructional-tech language such as LMS, digital learning, and technology integration appeared in 2.52% of education job posts in 2019 and 7.11% in 2025. Mentions of AI barely moved over the same period, from 0.49% to 0.55%, or roughly one in 180 posts.

Educator sentiment runs in the same direction. Among educators surveyed, 90% agree that AI use negatively impacts student learning, and 75% believe students are more likely to use AI to avoid learning than to enhance it.

The full report, Education’s Low-Hire, High-Fire Era: How Burnout and Budget Cuts Are Reshaping the Workforce, is available here: https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/data-at-work/data-stories/education-2026.

Methodology
All proprietary source data is derived from the BambooHR platform, covering approximately September 2022 through July 2026. The analysis is based on aggregated and anonymized data from BambooHR customers, drawing from a dataset that includes millions of employee records and workforce events across organizations globally. To enable comparison across organizations of different sizes, the report uses normalized metrics including hiring and turnover proportions (hires or terminations relative to total employees) and PTO usage per employee.

All survey source data is derived from a study BambooHR conducted using an online survey prepared by Method Research and distributed by RepData among n=1,248 adults age 18 and older. The research was split between two audiences who each saw a unique set of questions: n=926 full-time salaried employees in the US who are desk, frontline, or hybrid workers, including a subgroup of at least n=150 each from the construction, technology, education, healthcare, finance, and food and beverage industries; and n=322 adults in the US who are business owners or C-suite leaders at small or mid-sized organizations, including a subgroup of at least n=50 each from the same industries. Survey data was collected from March 24 to April 9, 2026.

About BambooHR
BambooHR is a People Intelligence Platform that helps small and mid-sized businesses bring clarity to their workforce and act with confidence. As AI reshapes roles, workflows, and skill requirements, BambooHR enables organizations to understand what matters most and what to do next by unifying their people data into a complete, connected view. The platform brings together core HR, payroll, benefits administration, and talent management with embedded AI, insights, and workflows to simplify people operations and improve decision-making. With more than 30,000 customers in over 190 countries and over 3 million employee records, BambooHR helps leaders align their people, drive growth, increase efficiency, and stay compliant.

For more information, visit www.bamboohr.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Education's Low-Hire, High-Fire Era report?
Education's Low-Hire, High-Fire Era: How Burnout and Budget Cuts Are Reshaping the Workforce is a BambooHR workforce report on the state of the education workforce. It draws on BambooHR platform data from K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and other education organizations, as well as a survey of n=1,248 US adults conducted between March 24 and April 9, 2026. Its headline finding is that involuntary terminations made up 38% of all education turnover in the first half of 2026, the highest first-half share in six years of BambooHR platform data.

What does "low-hire, high-fire" mean in education?
BambooHR uses the phrase to describe a pattern in which an industry's hiring slows at the same time that employer-initiated exits make up a growing share of departures. In education, both happened together: hiring fell by roughly 23% between H1 2024 and H1 2026, while the share of departures that were involuntary rose from 29% to 38% over the same period.

Why are teachers leaving the profession?
Burnout is the most common reason educators give. BambooHR found that 24% of educators surveyed are seriously considering leaving the profession altogether, and 59% of those considering leaving name burnout as their reason. Funding pressure is also widely reported: 70% of education leaders and 60% of educators surveyed said federal funding cuts had made their work extremely difficult in the past year.

Do teachers think AI is good for students?
Most do not. In BambooHR's survey, 90% of educators agreed that AI use negatively impacts student learning, and 75% believed students are more likely to use AI to avoid learning than to enhance it. Education hiring reflects similar caution: mentions of AI appeared in just 0.55% of education job posts in 2025, up from 0.49% in 2019, while broader instructional-technology language rose from 2.52% to 7.11% over the same period.

Media Contact
bamboohr@methodcommunications.com