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In-jurisdiction jobs retained

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. — HR KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).

I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier)

No public third-party standard anchors this KPI yet, so I'mBoard authors and maintains the definition — transparently labeled as editorial tier. See the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system and the back-attribution workstream.

Rogue ID: hr.in_jurisdiction_jobs_retained Type: Number Domain: HR

Definition

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 &lt;= 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])`.

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.

How to interpret

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.

  • hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount
  • hr.in_jurisdiction_jobs_created
  • hr.voluntary_exits
  • hr.total_headcount

Source

I'mBoard editorial — authored and maintained by I'mBoard, first published 2026-04-01. No third-party standard is cited for this KPI; when one emerges, the definition is back-attributed and promoted to the published tier (a minor version bump). Read the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system, attribution rules, and dispute process.

Stage relevance

Company stagePriority
Pre-SeedCore
SeedCore
Series ACore
Series BCore
Series C+Core
PublicCore

Suggested for stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C+, Public.

Default owning functions

  • HR

Machine-readable

In-jurisdiction jobs created

Number of jobs created inside the jurisdiction of a public funder DURING the reporting period — a FLOW, not a stock. The figure public funding programmes actually require: SSBCI 2.0 requires annual jobs-created reporting per portfolio company, EU structural funds report "employment supported" as a period figure, and US state tax-credit programmes are written in created/retained language. CONVENTION: counts in-jurisdiction positions whose occupant's first day fell within the reporting period and who is still employed in-jurisdiction at period end — counted as-of the reporting date, so a job that existed for a week and ended before period end is not reported as created. Same FTE-equivalent, employees-only, primary-work-location test as `hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount`; contractors are excluded even when in-jurisdiction. NOT DERIVABLE FROM `hr.in_jurisdiction_headcount`: two snapshots of that stock give NET CHANGE, not jobs created. A company that hires 10 in-jurisdiction and loses 10 shows a net delta of 0 while having created 10 jobs — and 10 is the number the funder counts. This is REPORTED BY THE COMPANY (`production: "primary"`), never computed from the stock series. Distinct from `hr.new_hires`, which is company-wide and carries no jurisdiction scope, so it cannot be filtered to the funder's geography. Disjoint from `hr.in_jurisdiction_jobs_retained` by construction: a job is created OR retained in a given period, never both. — HR KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).

Involuntary Turnover Rate

Annualized rate of company-initiated separations as a percentage of average headcount. Complement to `hr.voluntary_turnover_rate`; together they form the total turnover picture per the Mercer US Turnover Survey methodology. Common pitfall: lumping one-time RIFs into the steady-state rate, which makes the trend unreadable. Best practice is to report steady-state involuntary turnover and call out any RIF events separately in `hr.board_actions` with the headcount delta. — HR KPI anchored to Mercer US Turnover Survey 2025.

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