Female employment hit hard as online shopping grows
Posted on in Business News , Cycles News
An ongoing increase of high street shop closures across the UK means that female employment contuniues to decline.
According to a recent study undertaken by the Royal Society For the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, about 75,000 jobs as sales assistants or checkout operators previously taken by women have gone between 2011 to 2018, and 33,000 jobs were lost by men. However, the study showed that male employment has remained steady due to an increase in jobs in warehouses and as delivery drivers.
Rowan Conway, RSA director of innovation explained the reasoning for this "The traditional female skills of caring, welcoming and being customer service driven are lost when you are behind the wall of a logistics company or an Amazon warehouse."
Research undertaken by the Resolution Foundation shows that these job losses are part of an ongoing problem whereby female employee jobs in the retail industry has fallen from 16% in 1996 to 11% in 2018.
Sophie Walker, chief executive of the Young Women's Trust which supports under-30s, said "The government has tied itself in knots to respond to charges that technology is decimating men's jobs, its response to this latest assessment is pitiful in comparison to the millions set aside to prevent closures of car factories and other male-dominated industries."
This news is unsurprising as another report investigating the retail industry showed that a fifth of UK retail spending is now carried out online and this being predicted to double in the coming years. However, previous reports have not shown how unevenly this is affecting the UK in terms of not only gender, but also area. The RSA found that the biggest job losses in sales and customer service occupations came in the East Midlands, the North East and in the East of England. Meanwhile, there was a 16% increase in the number of retail jobs in London between 2011 and 2018.
It is vital that we continue to support our local independent stores in order to help our communities and local economies and prevent job losses. Initiatives such as the Best Small Shops competition help to champion independent retailers and promote them across the UK. The Best Small Shops competition is now closed for entries but stay up to date with the Indie Retail Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages for when the shortlisted 25 shops are announced in October!