Kronos Retail Labor Index Reaches Highest Point Since August 2008

CHELMSFORD, Mass., Feb. 7 , 2011 — Kronos Incorporated today announced the February release of the Kronos Retail Labor Index™, a family of metrics and indices that analyze the relationship between the demand and supply sides of the labor market within the U.S. retail sector, and provide a distinct and early indicator of the overall state of the economy. The February report includes data for January 2011. The report is available on the Kronos Retail Labor Index website.

News Facts

• The Kronos Retail Labor Index: (This metric is defined as the percentage of job applications that result in a hiring, normalized within a scale of 0 to 100. A level of 3.0 percent means that for every 100 applications received, three hirings occurred). The Kronos Retail Labor Index increased this month from 3.85 percent in January to 4.20 percent in February. This is the highest the Index has been since August 2008 when it reached 4.45 percent.
• Retail Hiring Level: The retailers representing 27,034 distributed locations across the U.S. that make up the Kronos® data sample recorded 37,129 hirings (on a seasonally adjusted basis) in January, a significant 41.61 percent decrease from the December 2010 seasonally adjusted figure of 63,587. The January 2011 figure represents a 9.61 percent increase over the 33,873 hirings that occurred in January 2010.
• Retail Applications Level: The supply of applications also decreased significantly to a seasonally adjusted level of 883,843 in January. The January figure represented a 46.55 percent decrease from the 1,653,520 applications processed in December 2010 and a 39.41 percent decrease from the 1,458,728 applications processed in January 2010.
• Retail Employee Retention Rate: Employee retention, the percentage of employees remaining on the job 60 days or more, was 82.50 percent in January 2011, a decrease of 1.47 percent from December 2010 and the first notable drop in the past 12 months.
• 2010 Year in Review: Retailers reduced their overall labor capacity by 9.7 percent in 2010.

About the Kronos Retail Labor Index

The Kronos Retail Labor Index is a family of metrics and indices that analyze the relationship between the demand and the supply sides of the labor market within the U.S. retail sector. It is derived from a single, unified data set, allowing for statistically appropriate comparisons and time series-based trending analysis. Firms that use Kronos hiring solutions employ approximately 15 percent of the U.S. consumer retail labor market, providing Kronos with a unique set of data on employee job applications, hirings, and length of service. The Kronos Retail Labor Index provides a distinct and early indicator of the health of the retail sector.

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