Future Of Retail May Be Unsteady, Commerce Secretary Warns Jobs Aren’t ‘Coming Back’

The economy may be rebounding strongly on the heels of an encouraging Jobs report, but there is still one sector that is struggling—retail. Now, the Biden Administration is warning that the industry may never recover when it comes to the numbers of jobs there.

In an interview with CNBC earlier this week, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated that despite there being positive signs of economic recovery, the retail and service sectors are really not expected to recover in the same way from the pandemic.

“The real issue, I think, is that a lot of the jobs that folks lost are the kinds of jobs, let’s say, for example, in retail or services industries, that might not be coming back or might not be coming back in the same numbers,” she said. “And so, what that means is, we have to lean into apprenticeships and job training and up-skilling.”

Her comments came as the Labor Department jobs report came out and showed a “historic” rebound from the COVID-19 Pandemic, with President Joe Biden praising the fact that 850,000 new jobs were added in June, with the hospitality and leisure sectors growing again after being decimated by the pandemic.

However, numbers from the Department also show that people are leaving retail jobs in record numbers, with 649,000 employees quitting retail jobs in April, in the largest mass exodus in one month in more than two decades, WXYZ, and ABC affiliate, reports.

People are leaving retail jobs in droves due to the low pay and limited benefits when positions are not full-time, lack of predictable schedules and the stress that came from working the jobs, which in some cases were deemed essential during the pandemic, making them also very dangerous. Employees are now finding jobs with higher pay and less stress in other fields, which is leading to a less stable number of employees.

“I don’t think there’s any question that COVID has caused us to reset and to rethink and that’s the keyword, rethink employment, what it means to us, what it should be for us and how do we approach it?” Dave Strubler, a professor of organizational leadership and HR development at Oakland University said to WXYZ.

As the industry continues to adapt to a changing landscape, which has also included increased competition from online markets, it is also trying to find ways to entice employees to stay by providing flexible work schedules and options to increase their level of comfort and safety. One such retailer who is playing with the idea is Apple, which has started to test a hybrid model of work from home/work from store for its employees. That model, known as “Retail Flex,” would allow employees to work some weeks at their store location and others remotely, where they will handle online sales, customer service and technical support.