Insee Première · September 2023 · n° 1966

Stability of salaried employment in retail trade in 2022, customer-facing workforce have been declining since 2016

In 2022, salaried employment in the retail sector stabilized (-0.1% over one year). This stability sharpened the stall observed since the end of 2016 in relation to the growth in salaried employment in the commercial tertiary sector as a whole. High inflation in food products has led to a fall in consumption of certain goods, contributing to a less favourable environment for retail trade.

Since 2016, employment in retail trade has been marked by structural changes. The numbers of employees in logistics and self-service increased sharply, by 12% between 2016 and 2020 at the expense of customer-facing commercial employees, who shrinked by 14% over the same period. These changes were particularly marked in food superstores. Secondary activities of online sales don’t affect the structure of employment in food superstores. Distance selling companies involved in online sales, in contrast, have an atypical employment structure.