As UK employment reaches record high, retail jobs fall
Responding to the latest ONS retail job figures for Q3 2019, Kyle Monk, head of retail insights and analytics at the British Retail Consortium, said:
“Overall, the UK has added 576,000 new jobs compared to a year ago (using 4Q averages). There are 36,000 fewer jobs in retail than there were a year ago, making it the sixth consecutive quarter of decline for retail employment.
“Weak consumer demand, rising industry costs and the change in the retail landscape has resulted in this decline. However, while there are fewer jobs in the industry, there is an ongoing transformation towards higher skilled and better paid roles such as in digital marketing, AI and data science.
“Retailers employ three million people, making the industry the UK’s largest private sector employer. Retail must be able to train their workforce so that employees’ skills remain relevant for jobs in the future as the industry will continue play a crucial role to the UK economy, providing jobs and supporting communities across the whole of the UK.
“The business rate system holds back investment, reduces productivity and increases regional disparities. The Government must fulfil its promise and must review the broken business rates system to relieve the burden on retail businesses and create a system fit for the 21st century. Currently, retail accounts for 5% of the economy, yet pays 10% of all business taxes and 25% of business rates – it is just unsustainable.”
