HR Benchmark Q2 2024
Report Excerpt
The BRC is running the HR Benchmark survey quarterly to provide retail members with market intelligence for labour planning. Full access to the report is restricted to survey participants, with summary labour market statistics available for non-participant members. For full access to the figures within future HR Benchmark reports, do participate in our upcoming survey round. 37 retailers submitted their data to the Q2 2024 benchmark. We greatly appreciate your input. This report covers over 682,000 workers.
Overview
ONS Labour Market Statistics
Jobs 
There were 2.86 million jobs in retail in Q1 2024, a decrease of 64,000 jobs (or a decrease of 2.2%) compared to a year ago and loss of 285,000 compared to Q4 2019 (-9.1%).
Vacancies 
Wholesale and retail vacancies numbered 87,000, 27.5% lower than in the period immediately preceding the pandemic and 5.4% lower on the quarter.
Redundancies 
In the three months to June, there were 3,000 redundancies in the wholesale and retail sector, 11,000 fewer than in the previous quarter but 13,000 fewer than in Oct-Dec 2019.
Wages 
At 8.3% in July, median payroll growth in retail was above the UK average of 3.6%.
Productivity 
Retail labour productivity in Q4 2023 was 0.8% lower on Q3 2023 and 0.6% below the same time last year.