Economic Sectors - Wholesale And Retail Trade

The wholesale and retail supersector encompasses private businesses that trade in products that they do not produce. Wholesalers buy large quantities of finished goods from manufacturers and sell the goods in smaller lots to businesses engaged in retail trade. Retailers then offer the goods for sale to consumers at an increased price, usually figured as a percentage of the wholesale cost. Goods in this sector are classified as durable (expected to last longer than three years) or nondurable (expected to need replacement within three years). Consumer goods in the durable sector include motor vehicles, furniture, household appliances, sporting goods, and toys. Durable goods are also sold to other businesses, for example, to the manufacturing or construction sector, including such items as machinery, equipment, metals, and construction materials. Examples of nondurable goods include paper products, drugs, apparel, groceries, books, flowers, and tobacco products. While the traditional notion of a retail establishment includes at least one store location, many retailers in the early twenty-first century operate via Internet and/or catalog sales without stores.

Wholesalers, NAICS 42

In Annual Industry Accounts the BEA reported that the gross output of the wholesale industry reached $909.7 billion in 2003. (See Table 2.1.) This figure was accomplished by 588,865 wholesale establishments, representing 7.2% of all businesses in the United States, according to the BLS in Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (www.bls.gov/cew/). In addition, the BLS reported that during 2003 the monthly average of workers in the wholesale trade was 5,605,600 and that nonsupervisory workers in this sector both worked more hours and earned a higher average wage than their counterparts in the nation overall. According to Current Employment Statistics nonsupervisory workers in the wholesale sector earned an average $17.36 per hour compared to the national average of $15.35 and worked an average 37.8 hours compared to 33.7. At 6% in 2003 the unemployment rate among wholesale workers was the same as the overall U.S. unemployment rate.

Retailers, NAICS 44–45

Retail sales, as tracked by the government includes sales of automobiles, clothing, food, electronics, construction materials, and other items. Retail trade realized gross output of $1.1 trillion in 2003, according to the BEA in Annual Industry Accounts. (See Table 2.1.) The 1,036,967 retail businesses made up 12.9% of the American economy during 2003, according to the BLS in Current Employment Statistics.

EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES. Retail workers tended to work fewer hours and earn a smaller hourly rate than the national average overall in 2003. According to the BLS, nonsupervisory workers in retail establishments averaged a 30.9-hour work week, and earned $11.90 per hour; production and nonsupervisory workers in the nation as a whole worked 33.7 hours per week on average at a rate of $15.35 per hour. However, the retail industry experienced wide disparity among sales subsectors, with clothing store sales positions realizing median hourly earnings of $7.77 per hour but salespeople in auto dealerships earning $18.25 per hour in 2002, according to the BLS in Occupational Outlook Handbook: 2004–05 Edition. Because many positions in the retail sales sector do not require postsecondary education or advanced training, this sector had a large number of young, inexperienced workers and part-time workers, who tend to be paid less than more educated, experienced workers. While the 6% unemployment rate among retail workers was the same as the national average, retail employment had dropped from 15,279,800 in 2000 to 14,911,500 in 2003.