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Filipino employees are not resigning in droves after receiving their 13th-month pay. In fact, December is the quietest resignation month among larger employers, while July is the busiest, according to a new study from Sprout Solutions covering nearly 275,000 employee records.
The Great Filipino Workplace Mythbuster tested ten widely held beliefs against anonymized attendance, leave, payroll and separation records from more than 700 Philippine companies. The findings challenge assumptions about when employees quit, why they leave and what employers can do to retain them.
"Companies spend millions on recruitment and retention, yet some of the assumptions behind those decisions are wrong," said Patrick Gentry, CEO of Sprout. "Our data challenges where leaders expect resignations, who they think is most likely to leave, and whether salary increases actually deliver retention."
The January resignation wave is a myth
Among companies with more than 250 employees, December recorded just 16 resignations per 1,000 employees, compared with 26 in July. Across four years of data, there was no consistent January resignation surge. Even companies that paid half their 13th-month benefit mid-year showed no corresponding spike in departures.
The findings challenge a familiar assumption behind workforce planning. Employers preparing for a January hiring rush may be overlooking their actual peak resignation periods.
Other calendar-related beliefs fared differently. Employees filed leave on 10% of workdays bridging holidays and weekends, versus 4% of ordinary days. Monday absences were also higher than midweek, but only by about one employee per hundred.
Gen Z isn't the problem, early tenure is
Gen Z employees appear to resign more frequently than older colleagues. But once length of service is accounted for, approximately 90% of the apparent attrition gap between Gen Z and Millennial employees disappears.
The bigger concern is early-tenure attrition across generations.
Of every 100 new hires, 19 leave within three months, 30 within six months, and 38 within their first year. The data also shows a renewed rise in terminations around month six, coinciding with the regularization decision.
For employers, the implication is significant: recruitment and retention efforts should focus less on generational stereotypes and more on the first year of employment.
A raise alone doesn't guarantee retention
Among rank-and-file employees, 22% of those who received a salary increase without a change in role left within twelve months, compared with 12% of those who received no increase.
The study does not suggest that raises cause resignations. Counteroffers, merit-cycle timing and differences between employee groups may explain the pattern. But the findings question whether salary adjustments alone are an effective retention strategy.
Employees who received a raise alongside a promotion showed a different pattern, suggesting that career progression deserves closer attention.
Another surprising finding: higher recorded overtime was associated with lower subsequent resignation, contrary to the belief that employees working longer hours are necessarily more likely to quit. The report cautions that this does not establish overtime as a retention tool.
The strongest warning sign may be a change in behavior
Employees who eventually resigned did not take more planned leave than colleagues who stayed. And while they were generally absent more often, that difference existed long before their departure.
A more revealing pattern emerged in undertime. Employees who later resigned gradually increased their time leaving work early, from an average of 19 to 30 minutes per month over their final year, while those who stayed remained steady at around 17 minutes.
The pattern is modest at an individual level, but it points to a potentially more useful approach to workforce analytics: looking for changes against an employee's own history rather than relying on broad categories or fixed thresholds.
"We've spent years putting employees into categories like Gen Z, high absenteeism and heavy overtime, then treating those categories as predictors," said Renzo Belardo, chief marketing officer of Sprout. "But the more useful question is what has changed in an employee's own behavior. That's where the opportunity for earlier intervention lies."
Free report and workforce planning tools
The Great Filipino Workplace Mythbuster is available for free at https://evergreen.sprout.ph/ebook/the-great-filipino-workplace-mythbuster, alongside a six-question Blind Spot Check, a first-year attrition cost calculator, and practical recommendations for CEOs, CHROs and operations leaders.
The report shows how attendance, payroll and HR records that employers already collect can reveal workforce patterns that conventional reporting may miss.
About the Study
The Great Filipino Workplace Mythbuster analyzed anonymized, aggregated attendance, leave, payroll and separation records for nearly 275,000 employees at more than 700 Philippine companies that use Sprout. The main analysis covers January 2024 to August 2026; monthly resignation trends go back to 2022. No individual employee or company is identified. The findings describe associations, not causes, and reflect companies on the Sprout platform, which may differ from the wider Philippine workforce.
About Sprout Solutions Phil Inc
Sprout Solutions is the People-First AI platform for Payroll, Compliance, and Work, serving businesses across the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Founded in 2015, Sprout brings together AI-powered HR, payroll and timekeeping, recruitment, performance management, employee engagement and embedded finance solutions to help organizations operate more efficiently and support their people.
Trusted by over 2,000 companies and 400,000 users, Sprout complements its technology with Managed Services, world-class implementation, support, and customer success teams focused on long-term client outcomes. Sprout exists to impact the lives of employees by improving businesses in the communities it serves. Learn more at sprout.ph.
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