The retail labour market faces tough challenges, if the Q2 2014 results from the BRC-Bond Dickinson Retail Employment Monitor (REM) are anything to go by.
The monitor, which measures changes and trends in retail sector employment over time, highlighted that the equivalent number of full-time jobs fell by 2.5% in the second quarter of 2014 compared with the same period last year, while the average number of full-time equivalent staff per store fell to its lowest level, indicating a drive towards smaller format stores – particularly in food.
Regarding the employment intentions of those polled for the next quarter, the monitor indicates that 75% of the sample intends to keep staffing levels unchanged in the coming three months. This compares with 80% this time last year.
There was an improvement in the number of retailers intending to increase staffing levels, which rose marginally to 21% in the second quarter of 2014 year-on-year. The proportion of retailers intending to decrease staff in the next three months remained at 4%.
Director general of the British Retail Consortium, Helen Dickinson, says: “Retailing, in particular grocery retailing, is an extremely low-margin business. In order to continue to deliver high-quality goods at affordable prices, retailers are keeping an increasingly close eye on their costs – the largest of which are their property and their people. The increasing upward pressure of business rates in recent years has meant that retailers have had less and less control over the cost of their property. This in turn has seen retailers ensuring that their workforce is as productive as possible and deployed across their stores in the most efficient manner.
“Retailing has always been a tough industry that thrives on an abundance of competition – and it will continue to be so. Retailers are well practiced at keeping their costs under control – however, UK retailers will only be able to grow and create more jobs if the costs imposed by others, Government in particular, are similarly carefully managed.”
