Job Vacancy Indonesia, Employee, Vacancy
The big news for those working in the retail industry this week was the survey results released by Manpower Inc. which revealed that retail hiring in the 2008 holiday season will be lower than it was last year. This might be widely reported news, but it's not unexpected news to anyone who works or spends money in retail stores.
A small comfort for Washington DC area retail job seekers is that fewer displaced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees will be flooding the mall with resumes. That's because a retention plan will be offered so that the lenders don't lose key people to a mass employee exodus. About 25 % of their employees will be offered "pay to stay" bonuses. The other 75%, I guess, are on their own and may need some of those seasonal retail jobs.
With so many gloomy predictions about the job market, it's difficult to know where to go with a retail career or even if there is anywhere to go with it at all. A majority of the e-mails I receive from About.com readers are either asking for advice about where to start in the retail industry, or, once in, "how to get there from here." These days many retail employees are asking for strategies to switch careers altogether.
It's been my experience that career paths are not always as safe and linear as most people would like them to be. Making a dramatic move, like leaving your chosen industry, might seem like an undesirable u-turn. In fact, though, it might be just that type of dramatic change that puts you on a career superhighway that you didn't know existed. Most of today's most famous CEOs did not have a linear rise through the ranks in the retail industry. Rather, the career paths of retail CEOs had many job-hopping, industry-jumping, and zigzagging moves.
You can gain experience and knowledge from any industry that will make you more valuable when you decide to reenter retailing. But if your decision to abandon your retail career is based solely on the economic news that's sensational enough to grab the headlines, then you're missing the whole retail story.
It wasn't widespread news when Bloomingdales's announced today that it plans to build three new stores. That's probably because the new stores are not scheduled to open until 2010 and 2011. Even so, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue have both announced plans for expansion in 2009. Also, Dollar Tree, Gymboree, Urban Outfitters, Petsmart, Walgreens, and Home Depot have all announced new stores openings for 2009, with leases signed and buildings under construction.
On the food side of the retail industry, long-time ice cream favorite Baskin-Robbins is in an aggressive expansion mode, projecting that it will have opened 400 stores globally in 2008. Toledo-based Marco's Pizza will have opened 40 new stores in the extremely crowded niche of pizza providers this year, and it expects to have 500 stores by 2010. Sprouts Farmers Market has plans to open 100 stores over the next five years, and Fresh & Easy is in the midst of a 30-store expansion in Q4. Even Starbucks, after closing 600 stores this year, plans to open about 200 new ones next year.
If you look in one direction, the job forecast is bleak for the retail industry. If you look in another direction the future seems bright. Every employee at every level gets to choose which direction to look. Any advice I give about careers always includes the escape clause that no matter what you choose, you'll always get the opportunity to choose again.
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