The National Retail Federation (NRF), world’s largest retail trade organisation headquartered at Washington D.C., USA, has revealed that the country’s retail industry noted an increase in jobs in the month of February 2018 when compared to January.
During the review period, the retail industry noted an increase of 46,400 jobs, informed NRF in a statement issued. Automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants jobs have been excluded while calculating.
Gains at warehouses and supercentres helped general merchandise stores to note an increase in jobs by 17,700, while clothing and accessories stores were up by 14,900 jobs. Health and personal care, sporting goods and miscellaneous stores, however, reported a decline in jobs to 5,400.
“This growth in the retail jobs is a significant positive sign about the health and viability of the industry. In view of stronger than expected and broad gains across most retail sectors give a picture of the prosperous year ahead,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz.
However, the job figure provided by the Labor Department does not give an accurate picture of the retail industry as workers associated with other parts of the business such as call centres and innovation labs, distribution centres and corporate headquarters have not been counted, added Kleinhenz.
The month of February also reported an increase of 68 cents – 2.6 per cent – year over year increase in average hourly earnings. The unemployment rate in February remained unchanged at 4.1 per cent for the fifth consecutive month.
The February increase was more than four times the gain of 10,800 jobs seen in January over December. The three-month moving average in February showed an increase of 10,600 jobs.
