The growing crisis, analysts said, will permanently alter an already-battered industry that has struggled to adapt to changing consumer habits as more people buy online and eschew department stores in favor of direct-to-consumer brands. Retailers announced a record 9,300 store closures last year, as such companies as Forever 21, Barneys New York and Gymboree filed for bankruptcy. Many others were hard-hit by the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports, which have already cost retailers 300,000 jobs, according to Moody’s Analytics.
The coronavirus shutdowns, Weinswig said, “are throwing even more salt on those wounds.”
Weinswig projects that at least 15,000 stores will close by the end of the year. Consumer confidence — which until this year had been buoyed by low unemployment rates and a booming stock market — has taken a massive hit in recent weeks, with millions reporting layoffs and pay cuts. Even once the country’s retailers open back up, analysts say it will be a long time before Americans are able, or willing, to spend freely.
Between 6 million and 7.5 million retail industry jobs are vulnerable to automation within ten years, according to an exhaustive study released this week.
The report, by Cornerstone Capital Group, concluded that the jobs of as many as 47% of the 16 million Americans currently working in retail could be made redundant by highly-automated e-commerce and other innovations. In-store roles most vulnerable to automation include cashiers and order clerks while salespeople and freight handlers are slightly less exposed.
