Shrinkage is the percentage of an agent's paid time that isn't available for handling customer contacts, covering breaks, training, meetings, sick time, and system outages. It's a planning figure used to turn raw staffing math into a realistic schedule.

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‍Why it matters

A workforce plan that ignores shrinkage will always be understaffed in practice, since the Erlang C formula used to calculate staffing needs assumes agents are available the entire time, which no real schedule allows for. Shrinkage is the correction factor that turns a theoretical staffing number into an actual hiring and scheduling number.

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‍What the number typically looks like

Shrinkage in contact centers commonly runs in the range of 25 to 35 percent once breaks, training, absenteeism, and other paid non-productive time are added together, though the exact figure varies by company and should be measured from real data rather than assumed. Underestimating it leaves a team short-staffed against its own service targets, and overestimating it means paying for capacity that isn't needed.