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Retail employers slowly introduce more full time contracts

UK retail employment grew in the third quarter, but at the weakest pace this year - and employers are slowly beginning to offer more full time contracts.

A 1% growth in employment on the same quarter last year was helped by a 1.6% increase in the number of stores, driven entirely by food brands.

According to the BRC-Bond Dickinson Retail Employment Monitor the number of full-time retail contracts grew at the fastest rate in three years.

Nearly three quarters of the sample retailers said they were likely to increase staffing levels in the run up to Christmas, but 8% said they were likely to decrease their payroll over the next three months.

Helen Dickinson, British Retail Consortium director general, said: “While these are still positive results, and I am particularly encouraged by the growth of full time employment over the last quarter, it is true that overall growth has slowed a little since the very strong results we reported last time.

“This slowing of growth supports the trend we have seen in recent BRC figures for gentler growth in sales and a slight fall recently in the number of people visiting our shops.

“The overall trend remains that jobs in retail are growing. In fact, we have reported positive growth in the number of jobs the retail sector offers every quarter for the last two years. Our figures are based on a robust three month rolling average so they demonstrate the continuing importance of the industry in employing more people than any other private sector area.”

Christina Tolvas-Vincent, head of Retail Employment at business law firm Bond Dickinson, said: “With the growing debate about employment contracts, it is interesting that retailers are creating more full time jobs as well as the more flexible part time or seasonal jobs that you might traditionally associate with the retail industry.

“Food retailers continue to outpace non-food retailers in terms of hours worked and store numbers; the success of the food sector is a crucial driver in the overall growth of the retail sector and this shows no sign of changing.

“Seasonal hiring is on most retailers’ agendas, with around three quarters planning to increase staffing levels in the next three months and with redundancy levels significantly lower than they were earlier in the year, the retail sector will be providing sought after opportunities for those looking for work.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .