“Retail salesperson” is now the most common occupation in the country. One in ten workers – over 16 million people – are employed in retail, and the industry is projected to continue keeping pace with the economy as a whole for the next decade. Understanding the challenges and opportunities for employment in the enormous retail sector requires a nuanced analysis of wages, hours and demographics across the industry’s occupations and subsectors. This data brief provides this critical analysis of retail employment, and then focuses on the relationship between wage levels and the race and gender demographics of common occupations in three of the largest subsectors of the retail industry: general merchandise, food and beverage, and home and garden.

Despite troubling trends of low wages, few bene ts and unpredictable, part-time work schedules across the enormous retail sector as a whole, a closer analysis of different business types within the industry reveals pockets of higher-paying jobs with greater career opportunity. Yet across retail subsectors, gender and racial disparities are widespread: Women and people of color disproportionately staff the lowest paid jobs, while white men disproportionately staff the highest paid management positions.

KEY FINDINGS

LOW WAGES IN GENERAL MERCHANDISE: General merchandise retailers, which include big-box stores, department stores, and discount stores, are now some of the largest employers in the world. Yet wages across frontline general merchandise occupations remain low: over 90% of workers in these positions earn below $15 per hour. And underemployment persists: 49% of part-time workers in general merchandise would like to work full-time. Opportunities are present if workers can advance in their stores—half of all rst-line supervisors earn over $17 per hour—but, people of color face barriers to equal access to advancement opportunities.

GENDER INEQUALITY BUT POSSIBLE CAREER PATHWAYS IN GROCERY: Although median wages for common positions such as packers and cashiers remain low in the food and beverage subsector, there are strong opportunities for earnings mobility within positions such as stock workers and rst-line supervisors. However, though women make up 60% of rst-line supervisors, they hold only 18% of higher store management positions.

HIGHER WAGES YET RACIAL AND GENDER DISPARITIES IN HOME AND GARDEN STORES: The home and garden subsector has the highest wages for retail salespersons and cashiers out of any store type (other than auto dealers), yet the subsector employs a lower share of people of color than other types of retail, with people of color holding less than a quarter of all positions. In addition, people of color are disproportionately employed as cashiers, holding 35% of those positions, and are underrepresented in higher-paying retail salesperson and management positions, holding only 20% of retail salesperson jobs and 18% of management jobs. Women also face tremendous barriers in the home and garden subsector: they are a third of the workforce, yet 74% of the cashiers and 12% of the management.

LOW WAGES AND OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION FOR CASHIERS: Across all subsectors, cashiers consistently have the lowest pay out of all major occupations within the retail industry, with 90% of all cashiers earning less than $13.30 an hour. Women and people of color are disproportionately employed as cashiers; for example, women comprise four in ve cashier jobs in general merchandise stores.

PROSPECTS IN THE SHIFT TO ONLINE RETAILING: While online-only retailers employ less than a quarter of a million people, the online retail workforce is expected to grow by almost 50% in the next decade. E-commerce sales were up more than 15% in November 2015 from one year prior, compared to only a 1% increase in all retail sales.3 The burgeoning online retail sector, set to affect the rest of the retail industry, has higher pay for entry-level positions such as retail salesperson, and over 10% of positions in online stores are management jobs. Thus, as the sector grows and exerts greater in uence on the industry, it may help establish a better model for frontline worker pay. However, it is an imperative that online retailing does not repeat the low-wage models of other retail subsectors and instead continues its path of higher wages for workers.

CONCENTRATED OPPORTUNITIES FOR RETAIL SALES WORKERS: Retail salesperson positions receive higher pay in stores that sell higher-value items, such as cars, appliances, and home furnishings. For example, over half of retail salespersons in automotive stores earn over $16 per hour. These employment opportunities may be obscured if the retail sector is only considered as a whole. But these same stores employ a greater proportion of white men, who hold higher-paid positions.

INCREASED DEMAND FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES: Customer service representatives (CSRs) will play a greater role throughout the retail industry with CSR jobs expected to increase by 11% in the retail industry (compared to 2% growth for cashiers, 5% for stock clerks, and 7% for retail salespersons).6 Though CSRs have one of the largest wage distributions in brick-and-mortar retail, CSRs employed at online-only out ts have a median wage of $14.00, so as more retailers strive to compete with online stores, the share of higher-paying CSR positions will likely increase.