US Recruitment Benchmarks 2026: Time-to-Hire, Cost-per-Hire and Applicants-per-Hire by Industry
Key US recruitment benchmarks for 2026, from the latest published reports:
- Time to hire: a median of 35 days in the US. By industry it runs from 25 days in retail to 55 days in manufacturing.
- Cost per hire: $5,475 on average for non-executive roles and $35,879 for executive roles.
- Applicants per hire: 74 at larger employers and 180 at small businesses, ranging from 38 in manufacturing to more than 300 in cleaning and home services.
- Offer acceptance: about 79% in the US. Roughly one in five offers is declined.
- Labor market: 7.1 million US job openings in August 2026, a 4.3% openings rate.
US recruitment benchmarks at a glance
| Metric | US benchmark | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Median time to hire | 35 days | SmartRecruiters, 2025 |
| Average time to hire (ATS customers) | 46.2 days | Employ, 2026 |
| Average time to fill (ATS customers) | 63.5 days | Employ, 2026 |
| Days from application to first screening | 7.2 days | Employ, 2026 |
| Applicants per hire, larger employers | 74 | SmartRecruiters, 2025 |
| Applicants per hire, small businesses | 180 | CareerPlug, 2025 |
| Applicants invited to interview, small businesses | 3% | CareerPlug, 2025 |
| Interviewed candidates who are hired, small businesses | 27% | CareerPlug, 2025 |
| Offer acceptance rate | 79% | SmartRecruiters, 2025 |
| Cost per hire, non-executive | $5,475 | SHRM, 2025 |
| Cost per hire, executive | $35,879 | SHRM, 2025 |
| Job openings (August 2026) | 7.08 million | US Bureau of Labor Statistics |
Where the numbers come from
No single dataset covers every metric, so this page combines six published sources. They measure different employers in different ways, which is why two "time to hire" figures can both be correct. Check the definition before comparing your own numbers.
| Source | What it covers | Data basis |
|---|---|---|
| SmartRecruiters, Recruiting Benchmarks 2025 | Time to hire, applicants per hire and offer acceptance, by industry and for the US | 89 million applications for 1.5 million jobs in 95 countries, September 2023 to August 2024. Mostly mid-size and large employers. |
| CareerPlug, Recruiting Metrics Report 2025 | Applicants per hire, days to hire and conversion rates for ten small-business industries | 2024 hiring activity at more than 60,000 small businesses, over 10 million applications |
| SHRM, Benchmarking 2025 | Cost per hire | Survey of US HR professionals |
| Employ, 2026 Recruiting Benchmarks | Time to fill, time to hire and screening speed | 6,640 customers of the Jobvite, Lever and JazzHR platforms, 2025 |
| HR.com, 2025 | Cost per hire by company size | Survey of HR professionals |
| US Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS | Job openings by industry | Official monthly survey, August 2026, seasonally adjusted |
The SmartRecruiters industry figures are worldwide medians for each industry, not US-only; its US figures are for all industries combined. No public dataset currently publishes US-only figures for every industry.
Time to hire by industry
The median time to hire in the US is 35 days, slightly faster than the global median of 38 days. Industry matters more than country: retail hires in 25 days, manufacturing takes 55.
| Industry | Median time to hire | Difference from US median |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 55 days | +20 days |
| Technology | 48 days | +13 days |
| Healthcare | 41 days | +6 days |
| Hospitality | 39 days | +4 days |
| Retail | 25 days | −10 days |
| US, all industries | 35 days | — |
Small-business time to hire by industry
Small businesses hire faster, mostly for hourly and frontline roles. Every industry in CareerPlug's data fills roles in 16 to 23 days.
| Industry | Average days to hire |
|---|---|
| Restaurant and food | 16 |
| Automotive | 16.7 |
| Cleaning services | 18 |
| Retail | 19 |
| Healthcare | 20 |
| Home and commercial services | 21 |
| Hospitality, entertainment and recreation | 21 |
| Personal care | 21 |
| Education and childcare | 22 |
| Fitness | 23 |
Time to hire vs time to fill
Time to hire counts from the candidate's application to their accepted offer. Time to fill counts from the day the job opens. Employ's 2026 report shows the gap: its customers averaged 46.2 days to hire but 63.5 days to fill. Time to fill improved from 67.7 days a year earlier, while time to hire was almost unchanged (45.7 days). Employers took 7.2 days on average just to reach a first screening.
Applicants per hire by industry
Larger US employers receive 74 applicants for each hire; small businesses receive 180. The gap reflects the kind of role as much as company size: frontline jobs advertised on job boards draw many quick applications, and only 3% of small-business applicants are invited to interview.
| Industry (small business) | Applicants per hire | Applicant-to-interview | Interview-to-hire |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleaning services | 317 | 2.1% | 15% |
| Home and commercial services | 312 | 2.0% | 16% |
| Automotive | 234 | 2.2% | 19% |
| Restaurant and food | 166 | 2.4% | 25% |
| Hospitality, entertainment and recreation | 165 | 2.6% | 24% |
| Retail | 153 | 1.7% | 39% |
| Healthcare | 139 | 2.7% | 26% |
| Fitness | 120 | 1.6% | 51% |
| Personal care | 112 | 2.5% | 36% |
| Education and childcare | 57 | 5.9% | 30% |
| All industries | 180 | 3% | 27% |
Applicants per hire at larger employers
| Industry | Applicants per hire |
|---|---|
| Hospitality | 117 |
| Technology | 110 |
| Retail | 65 |
| Healthcare | 40 |
| Manufacturing | 38 |
| US, all industries | 74 |
A high number is not a good sign in itself. Technology attracts 110 applicants per hire and still takes 48 days, because most applicants do not meet the bar. Manufacturing and healthcare see fewer than half as many applicants: their problem is too few candidates, not too many.
Cost per hire
The average US cost per hire is $5,475 for non-executive roles and $35,879 for executive roles, according to SHRM's 2025 benchmarking. The non-executive figure is about 16% higher than the roughly $4,700 SHRM reported in 2022.
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per hire, non-executive | $5,475 | SHRM, 2025 |
| Cost per hire, executive | $35,879 | SHRM, 2025 |
| Cost per hire, 2022 comparison | about $4,700 | SHRM, 2022 |
| Small companies spending $5,000 or less per hire | 54% | HR.com, 2025 |
| Mid-size companies spending $5,000 or less per hire | 52% | HR.com, 2025 |
| Large companies spending $5,000 or less per hire | 36% | HR.com, 2025 |
| HR teams that do not know their cost per hire | 35% | HR.com, 2025 |
What about cost per hire by industry?
There is no reliable public dataset that breaks US cost per hire down by industry. Industry figures quoted around the web are mostly estimates without a named survey behind them, so we have not repeated them here. What the data does show is the direction: industries with long hiring times and few applicants, such as manufacturing and healthcare, spend more recruiter time and advertising per hire, while high-volume frontline hiring in retail and restaurants costs less per hire.
The dependable approach is to calculate your own figure with the standard formula and track it quarter to quarter.
Cost per hire = (internal recruiting costs + external recruiting costs) ÷ number of hires
Example: $42,000 internal + $24,000 external for 12 hires = $66,000 ÷ 12 = $5,500 per hire, in line with the SHRM average. Run your own numbers with the free cost-per-hire calculator.
Offer acceptance and source of hire
About 79% of US job offers are accepted, below the global rate of roughly 89%. One in five US candidates turns the offer down.
| Industry | Offer acceptance rate |
|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 92% |
| Hospitality | 84% |
| Healthcare | 77% |
| Technology | 77% |
| US, all industries | 79% |
Where hires come from
Job boards deliver most applicants but a much smaller share of hires. At small businesses, a careers-page applicant is about four times as likely to be hired as a job-board applicant, and a referral about ten times as likely.
| Source | Share of applicants | Share of hires |
|---|---|---|
| Job boards (free listings) | 61.3% | 43.3% |
| Sponsored job ads | 23.1% | 9.3% |
| Company careers page | 13.1% | 26.8% |
| Referrals | 2.0% | 11.3% |
| Other sources | — | 9.3% |
Job openings by industry
How hard a role is to fill depends on how many employers are competing for the same people. The US had 7.08 million job openings in August 2026, an openings rate of 4.3%. Healthcare has both the most openings and the highest rate.
| Industry | Job openings | Openings rate |
|---|---|---|
| Health care and social assistance | 1,359,000 | 5.4% |
| Professional and business services | 1,186,000 | 5.0% |
| Retail trade | 761,000 | 4.7% |
| Accommodation and food services | 713,000 | 4.7% |
| Information | 123,000 | 4.3% |
| Financial activities | 403,000 | 4.2% |
| Manufacturing | 522,000 | 4.0% |
| Government | 731,000 | 3.0% |
| Construction | 251,000 | 2.9% |
| Total nonfarm | 7,079,000 | 4.3% |
How to benchmark your own hiring
- Match the definition. Decide whether you are measuring time to hire (from application) or time to fill (from job opening) and compare only with figures defined the same way.
- Pick the right peer group. A 30-person restaurant group should compare with the small-business tables; a 2,000-person manufacturer with the larger-employer tables.
- Use medians for time. One role that stays open for six months distorts an average.
- Measure the funnel, not just the ends. Record how many candidates reach screening, interview and offer. A 3% applicant-to-interview rate tells you more than the total alone.
- Track your own trend first. Your last four quarters are a better benchmark than any industry average.
What moves the numbers
- Screening speed. Employers take about a week to reach a first screening. In SmartRecruiters' data, teams using AI in hiring were about 11 days faster overall, a 26% improvement.
- Source mix. Careers pages and referrals convert far better than job boards, so shifting even a small share of applicants lowers applicants per hire.
- Offer speed and pay. With one in five US offers declined, a faster final stage and a competitive range protect the work already done.
The formulas behind each metric are in our guide to the recruitment process, funnel and metrics.
See your own benchmarks without a spreadsheet.
HireGen tracks time to hire, applicants per hire and source of hire for every job automatically, and uses AI to screen and rank applicants. The Starter plan is free.
Free calculators and resources
- Time-to-hire calculator
- Cost-per-hire calculator
- Recruitment ROI calculator
- Job board effectiveness calculator
- Attrition cost calculator
- HireGen recruitment software
Frequently asked questions
What is the average time to hire in the US in 2026?
The most recent published median is 35 days from application to accepted offer, according to SmartRecruiters. Employ, which covers Jobvite, Lever and JazzHR customers, reports an average of 46.2 days to hire and 63.5 days to fill a role.
What is the average cost per hire in the US?
SHRM's 2025 benchmarking puts the average cost per hire at $5,475 for non-executive roles and $35,879 for executive roles. The non-executive figure is about 16% higher than the roughly $4,700 SHRM reported in 2022.
How many applicants does it take to make one hire?
Larger US employers receive about 74 applicants per hire. Small businesses receive about 180, ranging from 57 in education and childcare to more than 300 in cleaning and home services.
Which industry takes the longest to hire?
Among the industries tracked by SmartRecruiters, manufacturing is slowest at a median of 55 days, followed by technology at 48 days. Retail is fastest at 25 days.
What is a good offer acceptance rate?
The US average is about 79%, so one in five offers is declined. Manufacturing reaches 92%, while healthcare and technology are lower at 77%.
What is the difference between time to hire and time to fill?
Time to hire runs from the day the successful candidate applies to the day they accept the offer. Time to fill runs from the day the job opens to the accepted offer, so it is always longer.
Is there a cost-per-hire benchmark by industry?
There is no reliable public dataset that breaks US cost per hire down by industry. SHRM publishes overall figures for executive and non-executive roles. The dependable method is to calculate your own cost per hire and track it each quarter.
How many job openings are there in the US?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 7.08 million job openings in August 2026, a 4.3% openings rate. Health care and social assistance had the most, with 1.36 million openings and a 5.4% rate.
How can I reduce time to hire?
Speed up the first screening, which takes about a week on average, let candidates book interviews themselves, and set deadlines for interviewer feedback. In SmartRecruiters' data, teams using AI in hiring were about 11 days faster.
Sources
- SmartRecruiters, Recruiting Benchmarks 2025 (data September 2023 to August 2024). Report PDF · US summary
- CareerPlug, Recruiting Metrics Report 2025 (2024 hiring activity). Report PDF
- SHRM, Benchmarking Report 2025, and "The Real Costs of Recruitment", 2022. shrm.org
- Employ Inc., 2026 Recruiting Benchmarks Report. Press release
- HR.com, 2025 survey on cost per hire by company size. hr.com
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, August 2026, Table 1. bls.gov
We update this page when new editions of these reports are published. Last reviewed 5 October 2026.
Hiring slower than your industry?
Post your next job and let AI shortlist the applicants.