Aug 19, 2024 03:51 PM IST

Multiple lifestyle and grocery retailers along with quick-service restaurants have reduced their employee count by close to 26,000 in the financial year 2023-24, the Economic Times reported, adding that this was in contrast to the hiring spree seen over the previous two financial years, which ended up slowing due to weakening demand.

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By how much did employee count in the retail segment fall and why does it matter?

Reliance retail, Titan, Raymond, Page, and Spencers saw their combined permanent as well as contractual workforce fall by 17% or by 52,000 people.

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The retail segment is India’s second largest employer after agriculture.

The combined workforce of 455,000 employees fell to 429,000 in 2023-24.

Why did retail demand weaken?

Consumers reduced non-essential spending on apparel, lifestyle products, electronics and dining since Diwali 2022, leading to retail sales growth slowing down to 4%.

This was because of inflation, interest rate increase, and job losses in startups and IT.

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Due to weak sales retailers saw the slowest pace of store expansions in at least five years at 9%, according to the report, which added that the retail sector which took up 7.1 million square feet of space across the top eight cities in 2023 is expected to reduce to about 6-6.5 million sq ft in 2024, according to commercial real estate services firm CBRE.