Retail Hiring Slows for Second Consecutive Month

CHELMSFORD, Mass., Aug. 2, 2012 — Kronos Incorporated today announced the August 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 August report includes data for July 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 down one-tenth to 4.2 percent in July, reflecting declines in both hires and applications.
• Retail Hiring Level: The retailers representing 18,362 distributed locations across the U.S. that make up the Kronosdata sample made 29,835 hires (seasonally adjusted) in July 2012, the lowest reading since January 2011 and the second consecutive monthly decline.
• Retail Applications Level: The number of applications received by retailers included in the Kronos sample fell 7.6 percent to 715,549 in July 2012 from a level in June that was revised slightly lower, all on a seasonally adjusted basis. Applications have fallen in six of the last seven months. In addition, the level in July was nearly 230,000 below its level one year ago and the second lowest level since the series began in September 2006.
• 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, edged down from 81.4 percent in February 2012 to 81.0 percent in March 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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