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Kronos Retail Labor Index™ Shows Retail Hiring on the Rise

CHELMSFORD, Mass., April 5, 2010 — Kronos® Incorporated today announced the April release of the Kronos Retail Labor Index™, a family of metrics and indices that analyze the relationship between the demand and supply sides of the labor market within the U.S. retail sector, and provide a distinct and early indicator of the overall state of the economy. The April 2010 release includes data for March 2010. The report is available on the Kronos Retail Labor Index website.

News Facts

  • The Kronos Retail Labor Index: (This metric is defined as the percentage of job applications that result in a hiring, normalized within a scale of 0 to 100. A level of 3.00 percent means that for every 100 applications received, three hirings occurred). The Kronos Retail Labor Index increased to 4.17 percent this month, up 30.2 percent (on a relative basis) from 3.26 in March 2010.
  • Retail Hiring Level: The 68 retailers representing 27,034 distributed locations across the U.S. that make up the Kronos data sample recorded 49,185 hirings (on a seasonally adjusted basis) in March 2010, an increase of 8.89 percent from the February 2010 seasonally adjusted figure of 44,113. This number was 26.63 percent higher than the 36,088 hirings recorded in March 2009.
  • Retail Applications Level: The supply of applications decreased 16.37 percent to a seasonally adjusted level of 1,175,169 in March, an acceleration of the trend of declining application levels seen between January and February 2010. The March 2010 figure represented a 7.51 percent increase over the 1,263,376 applications processed in March 2009.
  • Retail Employee Retention Rate: Employee retention continued to increase. Employees were 6.01 percent more likely to have a length of service of 60 days or more in March 2010 as compared to a year ago.

Supporting Quotes

  • Dr. Robert Yerex, chief economist, Kronos
    "The Kronos Retail Labor Index is up this month significantly from last month, good news for employees looking for a job in retail. In the next 18-24 months, we expect to see retail sales and hiring increase, though not to the levels they were at in 2008. We expect that a full 20 percent of the jobs lost in the recession are not likely to return."

Supporting Resources

  • Organizations that use Kronos hiring solutions employ approximately 15 percent of the U.S. consumer retail labor market, providing Kronos with a unique set of data on employee job applications, hirings, and length of service.
  • The Kronos Retail Labor Index is released on a monthly basis. Go to www.kronos.com/retail-labor-index to access: the full report; a schedule of upcoming Index release dates; the Index methodology; and downloadable graphics.
  • Note to reporters:  cite Index findings as "Kronos Retail Labor Index".

About the Kronos Retail Labor Index

The Kronos Retail Labor Index is a family of metrics and indices that analyze the relationship between the demand and the supply sides of the labor market within the U.S. retail sector. It is derived from a single, unified data set, allowing for statistically appropriate comparisons and time series-based trending analysis. Firms that use Kronos hiring solutions employ approximately 15 percent of the U.S. consumer retail labor market, providing Kronos with a unique set of data on employee job applications, hirings, and length of service. The Kronos Retail Labor Index provides a distinct and early indicator of the health of the retail sector.

About Kronos Incorporated

Kronos is the global leader in workforce management solutions that enable organizations to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity. Tens of thousands of organizations in 60 countries — including more than half of the Fortune 1000® — use Kronos time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, HR and payroll, hiring, and labor analytics applications. To learn how Kronos uniquely delivers complete automation and high-quality information in an easy-to-use solution, visit www.kronos.com.

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© 2010 Kronos Incorporated.Kronos is a registered trademark and Kronos Retail Labor Index is a trademark of Kronos Incorporated or a related company. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. 

Contact
Laura Souza
Kronos Incorporated
+1 978.947.4777
laura.souza@kronos.com