Retail suffering, but figures mislead
Jobs in e-commerce not part of sector stats
NEW YORK — The overall economy is adding jobs, but there is one spot that appears to be in a funk: retail.
Overall, U.S. employers added 263,000 jobs in April, according to the government data released Friday. The retail sector lost 12,000 jobs that same month.
That decline wasn’t a blip: The sector has shed 49,100 jobs in the past 12 months despite the faster pace of economic growth.
Retail job losses appear to reflect broader changes in the economy as more Americans have shifted their spending online and stores close after decades of overexpansion.
But the government figures don’t tell the whole story. Government statisticians still haven’t caught up with the booming growth in e-commerce. Jobs in areas like distribution warehouses where job growth is soaring are counted under the warehouse industry category, not retail. That method excludes 4 million retail jobs, or 20 percent of the retail industry, estimates Mark Mathews, vice president of research development and industry analysis at the National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group.
Retailers are also still struggling to find qualified workers. There were 840,000 openings for retail jobs at physical stores in February, more than double the number from February 2013, according to the most recent government figures.
Shoppers are spending more of their purchases online. That’s causing retailers that haven’t been keeping up with shoppers’ shifting habits to shrink their physical stores or shutter poor-performing ones.
As of last month, store closures this year have exceeded the total recorded for the full year 2018, reports Coresight Research, a key global research and advisory firm. U.S. retailers have announced 6,150 store closures, and 2,671 store openings. That compares with 5,864 closures and 3,239 openings for the full year 2018.
Retailers, including Walmart and Target, are automating menial tasks for workers. Under pressure from Amazon, they are turning their physical stores into shipping hubs, speeding up deliveries and helping to defray costs.
If you work for a retailer but don’t work in a building where the retailing of goods is the principal activity, you don’t count as a retail employee.
That’s because the Bureau of Labor Statistics determines the number of workers based on the main function of that site, says Mathews of the National Retail Federation. That misses the growth of hiring of workers at call centers, fulfillment centers and shipping sites.
Workers in the transportation and warehousing sector rose 11,100 in April and 176,200 in the past 12 months, according to the latest government data.