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Description
- Number of jobs inside a public funder's jurisdiction that were RETAINED across the reporting period — a FLOW, not a stock, and the second half of the created/retained pair SSBCI 2.0 and most US state incentive programmes require. CONVENTION (pinned deliberately — retention has genuinely contested definitions, and two boards reporting incomparable numbers into one portfolio total is the failure this pin exists to prevent): an in-jurisdiction position that was FILLED AT THE START of the reporting period AND is STILL FILLED BY THE SAME EMPLOYEE, in-jurisdiction, AT THE END. Three consequences follow, and they are the convention: (1) BACKFILLS DO NOT COUNT — same seat, new person is not a retained job (that person is `hr.in_jurisdiction_jobs_created` if their first day fell in the period); (2) it is ENDPOINT CONTINUITY, not continuous employment on every day of the period, because endpoints are what payroll records can actually evidence; (3) retained and `hr.in_jurisdiction_jobs_created` are DISJOINT — a job is one or the other in a period, never both, so the two are safe to add. The invariant this yields, which validates the pair against the stock series: retained employees are a subset of the in-jurisdiction workforce at BOTH endpoints, so `retained <= min(hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount[t-1], hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount[t])`. Same FTE-equivalent, employees-only, primary-work-location test as `hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount`; contractors excluded. REPORTED BY THE COMPANY (`production: "primary"`) — retention has no stock analogue and cannot be computed from headcount snapshots at all: it is a statement about continuity of specific roles across a period, not a count at an instant.
- Formula
- Count of in-jurisdiction positions filled at the start of the reporting period and still filled by the same employee, in-jurisdiction, at period end. Excludes backfills and excludes jobs created during the period. Has NO expression in terms of `hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount` — a stock snapshot carries no identity of who held which role, which is exactly what retention is about. Bounded by the stock at both ends: `retained <= min(hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount[t-1], hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount[t])`.
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Why it matters
- Public programmes fund retention as well as creation — an investment that keeps 40 existing in-jurisdiction jobs alive through a downturn delivers on the mandate even with zero jobs created, and "jobs retained" is the line item that says so. Without it, a portfolio reporting only creation looks like it did nothing in exactly the years the funding mattered most.
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Interpretation guidance
- Read against `hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount[t-1]`: retention as a share of the opening in-jurisdiction base is the churn signal, and a low share with a healthy closing stock means the base was rebuilt with new people rather than held — a different story for a funder than the closing number alone suggests. Confirm the reporting board is on this field's convention before adding it into a portfolio total: a board counting backfills as retained, or counting continuous-employment-throughout, produces a number that is not comparable with this one.
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Related KPIs
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hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount hr.in_jurisdiction_jobs_created hr.voluntary_exits hr.total_headcount
