WASHINGTON–Retail unemployment rose slightly in December, reaching 4.8 percent compared with 4.3 percent in November and 4.5 percent over the year, after seasonal adjustments.
In terms of job loss, retailers as a whole dropped slightly more than 24,000 employees during the month, virtually the same amount they had added in the previous month.
The U.S. Labor Department reported this morning that furniture and home furnishings stores shed jobs in December, but department stores and non-store retailers, such as catalogs and home shopping operations, added workers to their payrolls. In all cases, both the gains and losses were minimal, under 1 percent.