Kronos Retail Labor Index Reaches Highest Level Since August 2008

CHELMSFORD, Mass., Nov. 1, 2012 — Kronos Incorporated today announced the November 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 November report includes data for October 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 rose three-tenths in October 2012 to 4.8 percent, the highest reading since August 2008.
• Retail Hiring Level: The retailers representing 18,837 distributed locations across the U.S. that make up the Kronos data sample made 35,160 hires (seasonally adjusted) in October 2012, up 6.7 percent from the previous month. This was the first increase in five months and put the number of hires in October 5.2 percent above its level one year ago.
• Retail Applications Level: The number of applications received by retailers included in the Kronos sample was little changed in October, edging down to 735,273 from an upwardly revised 736,524 in September 2012. Applications have been moving down from highs reached last year, and the level in October was nearly 200,000 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, ticked up to 81.6 percent in June 2012 from 81.3 percent in May 2012 (all on a seasonally adjusted basis). (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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