The country has experienced a steady increase of hiring overall for several months although lower than what many desired. This prompted Investors.com to present a quiz this week which can be summed up by the question: "Guess which states lost retail jobs while hiring overall increased?"
One main character of the recent employment situation is that these new jobs tend to be of lower wage, replacing higher skill and high paying manufacturing jobs, and more of retail positions. On the other hand, getting regular paychecks is better than nothing.
In matters of lost retail jobs, the first state on the list is North Dakota. This should be obvious since the state has drastically slashed its energy production due to the consistent downslide of oil prices. All industry sectors were dragged down as a result.
The experience of the next two states on the list is not as intuitive. These two are the first two states that have approved wage hikes of $10 per hour. They now stand out for the contraction in their retail employments.
There are about 2,200 retails jobs lost in Massachusetts since this sector's employment peaked in July as the Labor Department seasonally adjusted data show. Employment in the retail sector is down 500 from December 2014, prior to the implementation of the wage hike.
Connecticut's experience is practically the same as that of Massachusetts. The state increased its minimum wage from $8.25 to $8.70 at the beginning of 2014. It was the first state in the union to accept Obama's call to raise it to $10.10. Its present minimum wage of $9.60 will increase to $10.10 when 2017 rolls in.
The current retail employment in the state is down 1,400 from its peak of 185,000 in April 2014. It now has lesser retail jobs than it has about 30 months ago.
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