Around 15,100 US retail jobs were lost in January unadjusted from a year earlier, according to a report by the National Retail Federation (NRF).
However, employment in the industry increased to around 14,800 jobs compared to December.
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According to the US Labor Department, the industry added 304,000 jobs overall compared with December.
NRF chief economist Jack Kleinhenz said: “January figures are always complicated to understand given weather and holiday hiring along with the Labor Department’s annual benchmarking process of updating seasonal adjustment factors and population numbers.
“Nonetheless, today’s numbers reinforce that the economy is in a good place and businesses are seeing demand for goods and services, and consequently hiring more workers.”
The study noted that the industry reported a month-over-month gain of 17,400 jobs in sporting goods, hobby and bookstores category for January.
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By GlobalDataIt has also shown an increase of 2,900 jobs at food and beverage stores, 2,600 at furniture stores and 1,500 at electronics and appliance stores.
However, general merchandise stores such as department stores reported a loss of 12,100 jobs, while health and personal care product stores lost 2,700 jobs.
NRF said that average hourly earnings in January were up by $0.03 cents over December to $27.56 and up by $0.85 cents from a year ago, a year-over-year increase of 3.2%.
The NRF report excludes job numbers for January across retailer categories such as automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants.
