It’s hard to find good help: The US unemployment rate is 3.4%, the lowest it has been since the US first sent astronauts to the moon.
- Competition for workers is tough. With roughly two jobs for every person looking for work, retailers need to find ways to make their workplaces attractive. That’s why we’ve argued that more retailers need to join the likes of Walmart, Amazon, Macy’s, and Target in boosting wages.
Zooming in: While it is true that many high-profile retailers have recently announced layoffs, even after those job cuts many of those companies will still employ far more people than they did before the pandemic.
- Amazon—which is laying off about 18,000 employees—reported 1.54 million employees at the end of 2022, a 93% jump from 798,000 workers at the end of pre-pandemic 2019.
- Ecommerce platform provider Shopify—which cut about 1,000 employees last summer—had 10,000 employees as of the end of 2021, double the 5,000 it reported before the pandemic.
- Food delivery platform DoorDash—which in December said it was trimming about 1,250 jobs—had 8,600 employees as of the end of 2021, well more than double the 3,886 employees it had just a year earlier (the first time it reported an employee count).