Retail sector to shed 20% of staff

AS many as 10,000 people working in wholesale and retail will lose their jobs in the second half of this year, resulting in almost 20% of retail sector workers being laid off over a two-year period.

Economist Jim Power said that by June of this year 24,700 retail sector workers were laid off and he said that he expects this will continue until the end of the year when a further 10,000 redundancies will be recorded in this area of the economy.

The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the value of retail sales has fallen by 4.8% in the 12 months to the end of June when car sales are excluded.