RetailCrossing Adds Thousands of Retail Jobs, Even as Macy, Home Depot Announce Layoffs

February 04, 2009   |    PDF version

Pasadena, CA — RetailCrossing, an affiliate of EmploymentCrossing, which is one of the world's leading job boards, has recently added thousands of jobs to its ever-growing database. While Fortune 500 retailers and many other major companies are being forced to downsize their workforces by varying numbers, RetailCrossing recently added about 5,000 retail jobs in a single week. The retail jobs posted on the site are gathered by hundreds of professionals from over 8,000 job boards and 250,000 employer websites daily.

Department store giant Macy's Inc. said Monday that it would cut 7,000 jobs, or 4% of its workforce, due to sluggish sales and weak economy. Meanwhile, Atlanta-based Home Depot also reported that it is eliminating 7,000 jobs, freezing officer salaries, and closing 34 EXPO Design Center stores too. The company said that it was giving pink slips to its workers in response to the poor housing market and generally bad economic conditions. Even Circuit City, which employs 34,000 people, said in January that it is going out of business. Analysts say that not much attention is paid by the government to aid and support the retail sector although it lost twice the number of automotive workers last year and hired less than 45% of the workers for the holiday season compared to previous years.

Last year, Starbucks, Office Depot, AutoNation, and many other retailers announced thousands of retail job cuts to save their bottom lines. Even in the midst of the holiday shopping season, retailers still hacked payrolls by 66,600 workers. All in all, more than half-a-million retail jobs were lost in 2008 alone.

''According to the International Council of Shopping Centers' estimates, chain store closings could exceed 3,100 in just the first half of the year. This is indeed a sad picture of the retail industry in the US. Mid-tier retailers are all in danger of going bankrupt,'' says Harrison Barnes, CEO of RetailCrossing. ''But there is light at the end of the tunnel, RetailCrossing, which aspires to list every possible active retail job opening in the industry. There are many retail jobs out there, but what is important is where job seekers look for them.''

The most sought-after job titles on RetailCrossing in January were:

• Retail manager jobs (15,211 jobs)
• Retail store manager jobs (9165 jobs)
• Retail consultant jobs (3,287 jobs)
• Retail merchandising jobs (1,575 jobs)
• Retail automotive jobs (282 jobs)

Barnes adds, ''RetailCrossing tries to leverage the quality of the existing retail job market with the help of quality efforts put in by hundreds of research analysts who scour jobs from every nook and cranny of the country. RetailCrossing has about 39,000-plus retail jobs posted in its job database, and that count will receive a further boost in the coming days.

For more information on RetailCrossing, log on to www.retailcrossing.com.

Contact:
Mary Wilson, Editorial Coordinator
RetailCrossing
626-243-1821
mary@employmentcrossing.com

About RetailCrossing:
RetailCrossing is an affiliate of EmploymentCrossing, a powerful and comprehensive organization dedicated to helping professionals find jobs that will enhance their careers. RetailCrossing consolidates every retail job opening it can find in one convenient location. The website also offers a seven-day free trial to new members.