Fewer People Seeking Retail Jobs; Hiring Still Not at Pre-Recession Levels

CHELMSFORD, Mass., July 5, 2012 — Kronos Incorporated today announced the July release of the Kronos^® Retail Labor Index™, a family of metrics and indices that characterize the current state of the demand and supply sides of the labor market within the U.S. retail sector. The July report includes data for June 2012. The analysis and write-up are prepared by Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, and are available on the Kronos Retail Labor Index website.

News Facts

• The Kronos Retail Labor Index: (This index is defined as the ratio of hires to applications within a given month, expressed as a percentage. A level of 3.0 percent means that for every 100 applications received, three hires occurred). The Kronos Retail Labor Index edged up to 4.2 percent in June from a reading of 4.1 percent in May. The June reading in the RLI reflected sharp declines in both applications and hiring.
• Retail Hiring Level: The retailers representing 18,362 distributed locations across the U.S. that make up the Kronosdata sample made 33,473 hires (seasonally adjusted) in June 2012, the lowest reading since October 2011. While the June reading was down, the level in May was revised up nearly 11 percent, leaving the trend over the first half of the year still solid as firms hired slightly more than 35,000 workers per month, roughly 5 percent above the average number of hires made all of last year and about 10 percent above the average level in 2010.
• Retail Applications Level: The number of applications received by retailers included in the Kronos sample fell 11.1 percent to 797,852 in June 2012, from a level in May that was revised 10.9 percent higher, all on a seasonally adjusted basis. Applications have fallen in five of the last six months, and the level in June was more than 150,000 below its level one year ago.
• Retail 60-Day Retention Rate: The 60-day retention rate, measured as the number of hires who remain employed for at least the first 60 days divided by the total number of hires made in that month, was unchanged at 81.9 percent (seasonally adjusted) in February 2012. (Note: There is a four-month lag on this indicator as two months are required to measure whether a hire remained employed for 60 days and Kronos customers have two months to return data on separations.)

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