Grocery Jobs

Grocery Jobs The US grocery store industry is extremely competitive. Besides traditional grocers, numerous types of retailers are attempting to gain their share of the grocery business. The major warehouse stores and discount stores have aggressively pursued the retail grocery market. The traditional supermarkets have lost a significant portion of their market share to discounters such as Costco, Walmart Supercenters, Sam's Club and Dollar Stores. The industry also includes gourmet food stores, health food stores and natural/organic food stores. Ethnic grocery stores are some of the nation's fastest growing stores.

In the grocery industry, the consumers call the shots and vote with their grocery purchases.

Grocery Employment - Employer Reviews

Grocery Store Industry Facts

In 2008 there were about 85,200 grocery stores; of which about 25,900 were convenient stores (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010)
US grocery stores and supermarkets have a combined annual revenue of about $562.746 billion (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010)
The 50 largest companies generate approximately 70 percent of revenue (First Research, 2010)
Industry sales: perishable foods account for 50 percent of industry sales; nonperishable foods 25 percent and nonfood items 20 percent (First Research, 2010)
Top competitors are The Kroger Co., Safeway Inc., and Supervalu Inc

Grocery Store Industry Employment Background

Sales and related workers: Cashier is the largest occupation, accounting for about 34 percent of all employees.

First-line managers: Oversee employees in different speciality departments such as produce or bakery.

Stock clerks and order fillers: Combined these employees are the second largest occupation, comprising 17 percent of the workers. They fill shelves with merchandise and arrange displays.

Clerical workers: including general office clerks, accounting, bookkeeping and auditing clerks. They develop and maintain the records required to keep grocery stores running smoothly.

Food preparation and production occupations: In order to compete with restaurants and fast food outlets, grocery stores hire workers to make prepared foods, deli items, baked goods, gourmet food and food to go.

Transportation and moving occupations: Large supermarkets have freight, stock and material movers in their warehouses. Most grocery stores have hand packers and packagers, also called courtesy clerks.

Management occupations: General and operations managers make sure grocery stores are efficiently and profitably operated. Managers of some large supermarkets are responsible for millions of dollars in yearly revenue.

A new type of manager is the category manager; similar to a purchasing manager they're responsible for a specific category of goods such as snack food.

Grocery stores also employ workers such as:

Pharmacists
Pharmacists technicians
Human resources, training and labor relations specialists
Building cleaning workers
Demonstrators and product promoters

Grocery Store Industry Employment Statistics

Convenience stores account for almost one-third of grocery stores, however they only account for six percent of grocery store employees
3.4 million employees in 2010
Workers ages 16 to 24 hold 29 percent of grocery store jobs
Cashiers and stock clerks hold about 50 percent of all jobs
80 percent of grocery stores have less than 50 workers

Source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)

Grocery Store Industry Employment Outlook

Due to the relatively high turnover in the industry, numerous employment opportunities will be available for first-time job seekers as well as for those seeking part-time jobs and people with limited job skills. Managers and specialty jobs require higher skill levels and more experience. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts little or no jobs growth from 2008 to 2018; compared to 11 percent growth forecasted for all industries combined.

Advances in technologies will make workers more productive, reducing the need for new workers. However, consumer demand is pushing grocery stores to increase product variety and increase the number of sales departments and consumer services. This restructuring of the grocery store industry requires a broader range of employees to staff newer departments such as deli counters. The mix of employees at grocery stores will adjust to reflect consumer buying habits and their changes in product focus.

Jobs in specialty food processing, preparation and serving occupations are projected to grow faster than the industry average. Little or no change is projected for cashiers and other front-end occupations.

The BLS forecasts the biggest number of job openings will be in the largest occupations: cashiers, stock clerks and order fillers.