Rod Addy
Retailers could face an employment crisis in the next year as they bleed staff at record levels and increasingly compete with the public sector for jobs.
Retail Human Resources' latest retail employment trends survey for the whole retail sector said UK retailers could be looking to fill up to 150,000 vacancies over the next year. Almost half of these would be for store workers.
However, the study added that most of this recruitment would result from staff turnover which had reached "epidemic proportions" Â up to 62% per year. And it said retailers would face massive competition from the public sector, especially for unskilled people.
As a result they could be forced to recruit workers from abroad, particularly to fill senior vacancies, while their own buyers and merchandisers were poached by overseas firms.
Report author Peter Burgess said store manager turnover was already at 27%.
He added: "Retention has always been a problem in the retail sector, but the difference now is that unemployment has never been so low.
"As far as shop floor staff are concerned, they have traditionally been hard to keep."
However, Jim White, HR director for Safeway which took part in the survey, said it was bucking the trend: "Safeway's staff turnover has slowed significantly over the past 18 months in a market which has seen contempories' figures continue to rise.
"This reflects the concerted effort Safeway has made to improve staff retention."
{{NEWS }}
Retailers could face an employment crisis in the next year as they bleed staff at record levels and increasingly compete with the public sector for jobs.
Retail Human Resources' latest retail employment trends survey for the whole retail sector said UK retailers could be looking to fill up to 150,000 vacancies over the next year. Almost half of these would be for store workers.
However, the study added that most of this recruitment would result from staff turnover which had reached "epidemic proportions" Â up to 62% per year. And it said retailers would face massive competition from the public sector, especially for unskilled people.
As a result they could be forced to recruit workers from abroad, particularly to fill senior vacancies, while their own buyers and merchandisers were poached by overseas firms.
Report author Peter Burgess said store manager turnover was already at 27%.
He added: "Retention has always been a problem in the retail sector, but the difference now is that unemployment has never been so low.
"As far as shop floor staff are concerned, they have traditionally been hard to keep."
However, Jim White, HR director for Safeway which took part in the survey, said it was bucking the trend: "Safeway's staff turnover has slowed significantly over the past 18 months in a market which has seen contempories' figures continue to rise.
"This reflects the concerted effort Safeway has made to improve staff retention."
{{NEWS }}
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