WASHINGTON — Retailers evidently felt they had enough help in the stores to meet the holiday shopping blitz, shedding instead of adding jobs in November, the Labor Department reported Friday in its monthly employment report.
Clothing and accessory store jobs fell a seasonally adjusted 2,200 workers to 1.352 million against October, although they employed 17,000 more people than in November 2003.
Employment at department stores dipped by 2,600 to 1.6 million workers for the month, which was 13,000 below a year earlier. Jobs at general merchandise stores fell by 4,700 for the month to 2.809 million and were 17,300 below year-ago payrolls.
Textile producers employed 2,000 fewer workers for the month, down to 411,200, as apparel employment dipped 2,300 to 275,600 — both part of long-term industry declines in the face of increasing competition from low-priced imports. Manufacturing jobs as a whole continued to show weakness, part of a four-year malaise, losing 9,000 workers to employ 10.137 million.
The economy as a whole added 112,000 jobs in November, considered a small increase since a healthy labor market is considered to be the addition of more than 225,000 jobs monthly. However, November was the 15th consecutive month of employment increases — registered mostly in service sector jobs such as in health care and restaurants — and was enough to push the unemployment rate slightly down to 5.4 percent from October’s 5.5 percent. The government also revised downward October’s employment gain of 337,000 to 303,000.
The dip in retail employment mirrors increases in productivity seen by merchants, which have been driven by technology, resulting in decreased need for workers, said Carl Steidtmann, chief economist with Deloitte Research.
Overall, Steidtmann said the jobs report reflected a growing economy, expected to post a GDP increase this year of around 4 percent.
“It’s hard to find a dark spot at the moment” in the economic terrain, Steidtmann said, although he noted that the combination of the growing federal budget deficit, now at some $400 billion, and the $500 billion trade deficit create “a bit of a dark picture.”
Charles McMillion, an economist with MBG Information Services, called the jobs report “terrible.” In addition to the economy’s slow performance in creating new jobs, McMillion said a 0.2 percent dip in the average weekly hours worked during November and a $1.25-an-hour decline in average weekly earnings are worrisome.
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Given such declines, and looming federal budget and trade deficits, McMillion said he’s concerned the economy lacks stimulus. In the last four years “tax cuts have helped to keep consumer spending and employers and business investing,” he said. “It’s difficult to see an engine in the economy now.