New stores and restaurants are tangible evidence of the continued growth of DC’s economy, and these sectors have also been important contributors to employment growth since the Great Recession. Food services and retail combined accounted for 25.2% of the increase in all DC private sector employment in the 7 years since April 2010, when the recession’s effects on DC employment were beginning to wear off. The share of all private sector jobs in food services and retail increased from 11.8% in April 2010 to 13.9% in April 2017—from one in every 8.5 jobs to one in every 7.2.

During most of 2016, however, the amount of increase over the prior year in jobs in food services and retail began to slow down. From December 2015 to August 2016 the annual gain in food services fell from 3,000 per year to just 500. Retail fell from 1,200 to 400. In the fall of 2016, the pace of job growth in food services picked up, but retail continued to slow down. In April 2017 food services employed 2,700 more workers than a year earlier, but retail employed 230 fewer people.

In the years since the Great Recession, there have been ups and downs in food service and retail employment growth. For example, the pace of food services growth hit a high of 3,867 in December 2011, and fell by more than half (to 1,600) a year later. Retail job growth was slightly negative for a brief period in the summer of 2011 and then rose steadily to a gain of 1,433 in June 2014, But the drop in 2016 was the most significant since 2010.

Measured as percent change over the prior year, growth in both food services and retail has been greater over most of the post-recession period than for the rest of DC’s private sector. Only toward the end of 2016 did the rates begin to converge.

Outlook. For the three months ending April, the increase in food service jobs over the prior year, 2,700, was slightly above the average for the past seven years, and the percent change, 5.3%, was slightly below the 5.7% average annual growth over that time. The sector would therefore seem to be poised to add additional jobs if DC’s population, employment, and income continue to grow along the lines of the prior year.

On the other hand, food services employment in the US has been slowing over the past year, falling from a 3.9% rate of growth in April 2016 to 2.2% in April 2017. Although the percentage growth of the sector in DC has generally been above the US average for most of the past decade, DC’s rate of growth last summer declined much faster than the national growth rate. By August 2016 DC’s increase in food services jobs was just 1% while the US rate was over 3%. If the rate of increase in US food services continues to slow or stays at a low level, it remains to be seen whether DC food services jobs can continue to outpace the US as it has over the past several months.

Nationally, the rate of growth of retail employment has fallen over the past year, going from 1.6% in April 2016 to 0.5% in April 2017. DC’s recent decline in retail jobs is thus consistent with national trends, just more exaggerated. For most of the past decade, DC’s rate of growth in retail jobs was well above the US average. Then over the past year DC’s rate of growth fell from 3.8%—more than twice the US rate—to negative 1%. Looking ahead, in addition to factors such as population, employment, and income growth, the retail sector faces the twin headwinds of on-line commerce and checkout automation that could make it harder to sustain job increases in the retail sector.

About this data. All data is wage and salary employment in DC and the US from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The date is calculated as 3-month or 12-month averages from the monthly series. The April 2017 amounts used here reflect revisions to the data contained in the May 2017 monthly release from BLS.

Note: A version of this blog appeared in the June 2017 District of Columbia Economic and Revenue Trends, issued by the DC Office of Revenue Analysis.