A tide of change sweeping through retail saw the number of jobs in the industry fall 3.3% compared with the same quarter a year ago.
The latest BRC Retail Employment Monitor showed reductions in hours worked on both full-time and part-time contracts.
All three months of the quarter reported a decline in FTE employment, April’s decline being the steepest of the three months but slower than the previous two months.
The BRC said 69% of respondents to its survey reported a reduction in hours in this quarter compared with last year, with 15% intending to decrease employment levels in the coming quarter, compared with 0% in Q2 2016.
It said the decline in the number of hours was greater in the non-food sector than in food. “The second quarter of 2017 saw employment in retail fall as the tide of change continues to sweep through the industry,” said BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson. “Technology, which is both transforming the way we shop and providing increasing opportunities for automation in retail, combined with a difficult market environment and policies that have increased the cost of employing people, such as the national living wage and the Apprenticeship Levy, are driving the industry towards fewer but more productive jobs.
“The pace of consolidation in the retail workforce has slowed this quarter compared with last. However, there are further reductions to come. The transformation of the industry is still in progress and this quarter’s data show that more retailers are intending to reduce their workforce in the coming months than at the same point last year.”
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