Development · Pipeline

Internal Mobility Benchmarks

All benchmarks/Internal Mobility Benchmark
Development · current reference
No open benchmark

Internal/referral hire share by industry — and an honest account of what isn't benchmarked.

What exists instead
StatusSourcing gap, stated
Published hereWhat the sourcing actually found
Publisher(s)LinkedIn Talent Solutions (cited via HR Dive / iCIMS), SmartRecruiters (with Lighthouse Research & Advisory)

No open, official cross-industry benchmark was identified during sourcing. Rather than publish a synthetic average, this page shows the evidence that does exist and names the gap.

Data vintage: Since 2021 (wording from Feb 2024); 2026; sep 2023-aug 2024 (SmartRecruiters 2025)·Retrieved 2026-07-26·Sources verified
Compare your number
Internal Hire Share Calculator

Compares against SmartRecruiters 2025 internal/referral hire share by segment — not a full internal-mobility rate (F5).

Internal Hire Share Calculator
Benchmark Table
Internal & Referral Hire Share by Segment

Sep 2023–Aug 2024 cohort, published 2025. SmartRecruiters 2025 Hiring Benchmark Report, excerpt. Share of all hires, not a mobility rate.

SegmentValueVintage
Global8%sep 2023-aug 2024 (SmartRecruiters 2025)
Global7%sep 2023-aug 2024 (SmartRecruiters 2025)
Healthcare20%sep 2023-aug 2024 (SmartRecruiters 2025)
Manufacturing14%sep 2023-aug 2024 (SmartRecruiters 2025)
Retail3%sep 2023-aug 2024 (SmartRecruiters 2025)
Germany12%sep 2023-aug 2024 (SmartRecruiters 2025)

Denominator: internal hires (respectively, referrals) as a share of all hires

Source: SmartRecruiters, 2025 Hiring Benchmark Report (excerpt, © SmartRecruiters, with Lighthouse Research)
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Gap honesty
Internal Mobility: What Is (And Isn’t) Openly Benchmarked

Where no verifiable open benchmark exists, we say so — instead of publishing a number that doesn’t hold up.

Internal mobility growth (textual claim)
Internal mobility grew roughly 30% between 2021 and 2024 (LinkedIn Talent Blog, Feb 2024, cited via secondary reporting from HR Dive/iCIMS). Absolute percentage levels are not confirmed in any open source and are not published here.
Source: LinkedIn Talent Blog, Feb 2024 (cited via secondary reporting) · Since 2021 (wording from Feb 2024)
Gap finding
Gap finding: no open, official, cross-industry benchmark for internal mobility was identified. hrref publishes what does and doesn't exist instead of a single figure.
Source: LinkedIn Talent Blog, Feb 2024 (cited via secondary reporting) · 2026
Definition traps
Read this before you compare numbers

Fixed methodology boxes — see /methodology for the full policy.

F5 · Definition trap
Internal mobility ≠ job-to-job movement
“Internal mobility” (moving to a new role inside the same employer) and “job-to-job flows” (published in some labor-market statistics as switching employers) are different phenomena measured by different instruments. No open, official, cross-industry internal-mobility benchmark was identified during sourcing — this site shows what vendor data exists (SmartRecruiters internal/referral hire shares) and states that gap explicitly.