The British Retail Industry Is Facing Great Challenges.

British Retail Consortium (referred to as BRC) the British Retail Association released a 20 page retail 2020 - Fewer but Bertter Jobs report on Tuesday. It said that since 2008, the retail industry has been decreasing, and the wage situation has been rising due to rising cost and low wages.

Competition predicts that 910 thousand people will be out of work by 2025, but BRC says it will do better in the future even though the retail population is decreasing.

The retail industry is the largest private employer in the UK with 3 million 10 thousand of its employees. According to BRC, the retail industry in the UK serves 60 million customers a week and produces 340 billion pounds in 2015.

However, as the cost rise is much higher than the increase in consumer spending, the retail industry is facing enormous challenges, including a sharp decline in the number of stores and a decline in the number of employees.

BRC said that since 2006, the UK has reduced about 40000 retail stores, and the number of employees has dropped from the highest 3 million 200 thousand in 2008 to 3 million in 2014, while 15%.

It has further reduced retail operators.

BRC data show that in 2004 -2014, the cost of the British retail industry rose sharply by 33.8%, while consumer spending increased by only 2%. The huge gap between them resulted in a sharp decline in the profitability of the British retail industry, and the net profit of the British retail industry dropped sharply from 6%-8% before 2007 to 3% -5% today.

The rise in retail costs, including the rise in wages, will raise the national minimum wage to 7.2 pounds in March, which is expected to rise to 9 in 2020. BRC said that British retailers will therefore spend more than 1 billion pounds 3 billion pounds.

Meanwhile, British retail commodity prices have fallen for the 33 consecutive month due to deflation.

As a result, BRC calls for a reduction in future retail practitioners, on the one hand, because of the speed of retail stores, on the other hand, the high degree of automation in stores will reduce the demand for retail practitioners.

The stores will lose 440 thousand practitioners, and 60% of automation will lose 70 thousand jobs each year, but considering that automation can not be fully realized immediately, the actual loss of jobs will be 37000 each year. As of 2025, automation will lose 370 thousand jobs in the British retail industry.

The automation of retail stores also includes supply chains.

The automation of the industry will result in the loss of 200 thousand jobs, but automation will generate some jobs such as data analysis industry. It is expected that 100 thousand new jobs will be added in 2025.

As a result, only 10 new jobs were born while 1 million 100 thousand jobs lost, with net loss of 910 thousand.

In fact, the British super giant Morrisons, Sainsbury 's, Tesco and Asda have been streamlining costs and layoffs. Tesco PLC PLC (TSCO:L) Tesco is out of a document that is considering layoffs of 39000 people in the next three years. Tesco PLC has confirmed the document, but denies it. However, in the middle of 1, Asda confirmed 200 employees, accounting for 20% of its headquarters staff.