Around 70,000 retail jobs lost in Q4, report finds

The total number of employees working in retail was down 2.2%, equivalent to around 70,000 jobs, on Q4 2017 an industry report has found.

The British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) Retail Employment Monitor also found that reductions in hours similar for full-time and part-time contracts as total hours fell by 2.8%. Full time hours fell by 2.9% compared Q4 2017 – a slower decline than seen in the last quarter when it declined by 4.2% – while part-time hours declined by 2.8%.

The BRC said employment intentions vary, with 29% of retailers indicating plans to reduce staff in the coming quarter, an identical rate seen at the same point last year. However a greater proportion of survey participants planned to increase their labour requirements compared to the previous year. The proportion of those seeking to keep staff levels was reported to have decreased slightly.

Helen Dickinson OBE, chief executive at the BRC, said: “The retail industry is undergoing a profound change and the latest employment data underpins those trends. Technology is changing both the way consumers shop, but also the types of jobs that exist in retail. While we expect the number of frontline staff to fall over the next decade, there will many new jobs created in areas such as digital marketing and AI.

“However, this transformation comes at a cost for retailers, who are already weighed down by the increasing costs of public policy, from sky high business rates to rising minimum wage. To support this investment in the future of retail, government needs to play its part, reforming the broken business rates system to ensure it is fit for the 21st Century.”