"Roland Perry" wrote in message

In message , at 16:23:10 on
Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Recliner remarked:
There aren't many estate agents, but plenty of banks and building
societies. All of these need staff, however.

That's what I meant when I said that it's these 'new' types of
retailers that are employing extra staff, while supermarkets need
less staff per pound of sales.

But overall the staff levels are gradually increasing.

That may well be so, but the point I was making was that when a
supermarket moves into town, the numerous 'new' jobs it claims to be
creating will be at the expense of a larger number existing jobs in
local small shops, so there's an immediate drop in local retail
employment. In due course, some of these small shops will close, and may
well be replaced by new types of shops (ie, mobile phones, takeaways,
internet cafes, banks, etc), so that the total number of retail jobs may
indeed increase over time. But that's not because of the claimed new
jobs created by the supermarket.