Retail Job Loss Could Impact Rental Market

Over the first three months of 2017, department and general merchandise stores across the country cut 71,000 jobs, wiping out two years of growth. With the rise of e-commerce businesses like Amazon and the decline of brick-and-mortar stores such as Sears, the sector will continue to be unstable.

Zillow reports that retail workers are the breadwinners in 1.1 million U.S. households, and that 1.1 million retail worker households rent. Nearly a quarter of the renter households rely on retail job income to pay for housing costs.

Zillow also found five markets with the highest shares of retail workers: Fayetteville, Ark., Dallas-Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Kansas City, Mo.

In all five of these markets, the majority of households dependent on retail income are renter households – ranging from 55 percent in Minneapolis-St. Paul, to 88 percent in Kansas City.

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