California shoppers are spending frugally while and merchants pare their staffing accordingly.
That’s what my trusty spreadsheet found by reviewing two years of statewide retail sales data from the Census Bureau and shopkeeper hiring patterns tracked by the Employment Development Department .
Look, financial fears are growing as California consumer confidence is at a four-year low. Such skittishness is hitting your favorite shopping center’s cash registers.
It’s been wild times for shoppers and merchants. Exiting pandemic lockdowns sparked a shopping revival but also ended certain retailers’ boom times. Next, sky-high inflation and lofty interest rates made bargain hunting a priority.
So, it’s no stunner that California retail spending in the year’s first five months – minus online shopping — rose only at a 1.2% average annual rate. That’s still a modest improvement above the 0.2% increase in the same period in 2023. Do not forget, though, that statewide sales jumped at a 9% rate to start 2022 as the economy’s coronavirus clamps were released.
In turn, California merchants got stingy with hiring over the past two years. The 1.6 million workers employed in retailing this year is down 4,600 jobs, or 0.3%, since the start of 2022.
By the slice
A deeper dive into spending and hiring patterns reveals wide variations in where Californians spent their money.
Look at 11 slices of California’s in-store shopping and you see clear winners and losers. Let’s ponder swings in sales and jobs by category in the past two years, ranked by the state’s hardest-hit merchants to those shops with the biggest sales gains.
Home Furnishings: Talk about dead. Everyone fixed up their homes during the 2020-21 lockdowns. High mortgage rates then cut homebuying, further hurting this niche. Sales are down 9.7% this year following the previous year’s 0.7% sales hike. And there’s 6,700 fewer jobs, or a drop of 13%, in two years.
Sporting goods/hobby/music:…
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