- 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 slightly this month from 3.84 percent in November to 3.85 percent in December.
- Retail Hiring Level: The retailers representing 27,034 distributed locations across the U.S. that make up the Kronos data sample recorded 63,587 hirings (on a seasonally adjusted basis) in December, a significant 13.49 percent increase over the November 2010 seasonally adjusted figure of 56,028. This was also a dramatic increase of 86.87 percent over the 34,027 hirings that occurred in December 2009.
- Retail Applications Level: The supply of applications also increased significantly, to a seasonally adjusted level of 1,653,520 in December, a 13.47 percent increase over the 1,457,264 applications processed in November 2010, and a 10.09 percent increase from the 1,501,919 applications processed in December 2009.
- Retail Employee Retention Rate: Employee retention increased slightly in December with 83.97 percent of employees remaining on the job 60 days or more, as compared with 83.22 percent in November 2010.
- Holiday season hiring spiked dramatically in November and December to a much larger degree than in previous years, as retailers adopted a just-in-time labor strategy.
Supporting Quotes
- Dr. Robert Yerex, chief economist, Kronos
“The 2010 holiday hiring season confirmed that employers waited until the last minute to hire holiday staff. The combination of a larger pool of available workers and increased use of technology to more effectively manage existing employees is fueling this trend.”
