The demand for sales people in the retail sector may be bottoming out, according to the latest Monster Employment Index.

The latest readings show that, despite a 2% drop in the index in May, online job opportunities in the sales sector increased by the same amount, a sign that retail industry hiring may be stabilising.

Retail recruiters say that, although the market is tougher than at this time last year, business is picking up.

Grant Morris, managing director of London-based Elite Associates, which won the Best Retail Recruitment Firm at the 2009 Recruiter Awards for Excellence sponsored by Thomas International, said hiring was “coming back to a kind of business as usual” after a tough start to the year.

“We are hitting our budgets which were set post credit crunch,” Morris told Recruiter. “We’ve seen a slight rise in demand across the board.”

Morris suggested that this could be due to more people visiting the shops during the beginning of summer, and a weak pound leading to a large influx of shoppers coming to the UK from Europe.

Steve Walters, managing director of Faces Consultancy, a boutique agency in London, agreed that more shoppers were indeed venturing to the UK because of a weak pound. He believed hiring would continue to “level out” for about six months before confidence in the sector would return
completely.

“I’m not sure whether possible cuts in the public sector will have a knock-on effect in the private sector, with large numbers of people competing for the same jobs,” he told Recruiter.

“There are slight indications that business is improving for recruiters and it may continue if people choose to stay at home rather than go abroad this year.”

Although hiring tendencies are slightly on the rise, Walters said that salary was one area where candidates were having to
compromise with potential new employers.

“There’s a lot more negotiation going on,” he said. “People are taking lower-paid jobs because of the economic climate, even if the job is advertised with a higher salary.”

Another factor which could work in recruiters’ favour was the hot weather, according to Walters. “People could decide to stay at home this year rather than go abroad,” he said.

Job boards are also hopeful that the summer will see a rise in business. Mike Convey, website director at RetailChoice.com, part of the Totaljobs Group, said that he had noticed smaller operators in the sector feeling “bullish” about the weeks ahead.

“Signs are pretty good just at the moment,” he explained. A lot of the smaller operators, particularly those with a number of stores in certain parts of the country, are quite bullish.”

This optimism was shared by the bigger players, maintained Convey. “If you look at the City results that have been posted over the last few weeks, there has been as much good news as bad.”

Convey said that there was a consistent demand for store managers, as they were experts who could help profitability during tough times.

“If you’ve got a killer store manager, head office knows that they’ve got someone who is doing the best they can,” he said. Hugo Sellert, head of economic research at Monster Worldwide, said the change of season could be the reason for an upturn in hiring activity.

“The sales sector has been hard hit by the slump in consumer confidence that has led to lower household spending. Indeed, many retailers have had to slim down their workforce over the past year. The recent increase partly reflects seasonal preparations for the summer holidays, but also suggests that the demand for sales personnel may be bottoming out.”

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