Education’s Low-Hire, High-Fire Era: How Burnout and Budget Cuts Are Reshaping the Workforce

The education workforce could be flatlining, according to the latest platform data from BambooHR. 38% of educator turnover was involuntary in the first half of 2026—the highest portion of involuntary turnover in H1 on record for the past six years.

The rise in involuntary terminations coincides with a significant hiring slowdown. In just two years, education hiring decreased by roughly 23% (H1 2024 to H1 2026). Education appears to be in a low-hire, high-fire era.

Analyzing BambooHR platform data from K-12 schools, higher ed, and other education organizations, as well as a survey of education professionals, this report takes a deeper look into the current state of the education workforce.

In H1 2024—prior to the federal funding freezes that would occur in the subsequent years—the involuntary share of turnover was 29%. Relative to H1 2026, that’s a roughly 31% increase in involuntary turnover in less than two years. Educators echo a similar story: 70% of education leaders and 60% of educators say that federal funding cuts have made their work extremely difficult in the last year.

As hiring slows, education is facing a flattening net growth gap. Education’s average net growth gap (hiring minus turnover) over the course of H1 2026 has dropped to -0.01 percentage points—essentially flat, and technically dipping into negative growth.

In other words, education’s hiring rate is now almost equal to its turnover rate—a troubling sign for student learning, given that 60% of education leaders say that teacher or staff attrition has meaningfully disrupted their ability to deliver quality outcomes in the past year.

Burnout continues to be a pressing concern: 1 in 4 educators (24%) are seriously considering leaving the profession altogether, with most naming burnout (59%) as their reason for departing.

The impact of burnout may be evident in the growing number of sick leave requests. Within the education workforce, the share of PTO falling under sick leave rose from 10% in 2021 to 13% in 2025.

Notably, in the period between 2021 and 2025, mask mandates were lifted and in-person learning returned—the coinciding uptick in sick leave could point to an increased strain on physical and mental wellness. The first half of 2026 saw the share of sick leave continue to grow, increasing to 14% of all PTO through July 2026.

Leaders are taking notice: 85% of education leaders are more concerned about the mental health of their staff than they were two years ago, and that concern may be showing up through policy changes.

In educator job descriptions, language around mental health and employee wellbeing has more than tripled, going from appearing in 1.27% of job posts in 2019 to 4.14% in 2025.

That said, educator satisfaction is actually increasing, rather than declining. From H1 2025 to H1 2026, education eNPS^Ⓡ* (Employer Net Promoter Score) grew 3.9%, reaching 38.6.

*Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered U.S. trademarks, and NetPromoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.

Over the past several years, the tech industry has made significant gains in its influence on education, and that dominance appears to be shaping how educators are expected to perform their roles.

In job descriptions, the prevalence of instructional-tech language (terms such as LMS, digital learning, and technology integration) nearly tripled from 2019 to 2025, spiking from 2.52% to 7.11%. Put plainly: Ed tech is specifically mentioned in more than 1 in 14 of today’s educator job postings.

The education sector still seems to be wary of embracing AI to the same extent that it’s embraced other big tech offerings, with the share of AI-specific language in job postings staying flat and low from 2019 to 2025, rising from just 0.49% to 0.55%.

This aligns with educators' broader sentiment: 90% of educators agree that AI use negatively impacts student learning, and 75% believe that students are more likely to use AI to avoid learning rather than enhance it.

The relatively lower portion of AI mentions within job descriptions could also be rooted in an implementation problem. 2 in 3 educators (66%) report that schools are adopting AI faster than teachers are being trained to manage it.

Without the right infrastructure in place, role expectations and professional development may be at risk of lagging behind the reality of the classroom.

All proprietary source data is derived from the BambooHR platform, covering approximately September 2022 through July 2026. This 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, several normalized metrics are used throughout the report. These include 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+) globally. The research was split among two separate 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. This includes a subgroup of at least n=150 each from the construction, technology, education, healthcare, finance, and food and beverage industries. The sample has a spread of gender, age, work type, company size, and geography groups represented.

n=322 adults (age 18+) in the United States who are business owners or C-suites in small or mid-sized organizations. This includes a subgroup of at least n=50 each from the construction, technology, education, healthcare, finance, and food and beverage industries. The sample has a spread of small and mid-sized businesses represented.

Survey data was collected from March 24 to April 9, 2026.

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