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The purpose of this paper is to assess the magnitude of employee turnover (E-turnover) in Nigerian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with particular focus on the manufacturing and service firms adjudged as central to the growth and development of Nigerian economy.

Data from 602 employees and 94 owner/managers of SMEs located in three Southwestern Nigerian states were collected through survey questionnaire and analysed quantitatively.

Employees’ and management’s responses indicated that E-turnover still pervades the Nigerian SMEs surveyed with most employees leaving their jobs in less than a year of employment. Multiple exits also occurred; additionally, employees were more prone to exiting if they were male, older, had a smaller family size and/or worked in the manufacturing rather than service SMEs.

More needs to be done to comprehend owner-managers’ apparent deliberate disguise of employee over-casualisation in the SMEs studied, an act that appeared to limit the interpretation of status-related turnover extent among employees.

Twenty-first century businesses need to stimulate sustainable cost-effective employment relationship capable of thwarting the threat accompanying high E-turnover in businesses.

Through this research, extant global E-turnover literature (largely on western businesses) is enriched by dedicated empirical data on Nigerian SMEs that this study offers.