New York (CNN Business) Payless. Charlotte Russe. Toys "R" Us. The chain store liquidations just keep coming, putting tens of thousands of workers out of their jobs. Is the retail industry about to collapse?

Probably not, despite the rash of stories over the past two years heralding the death of physical stores. But the brick-and-mortar part of the sector sure isn't creating as many jobs as it used to.

US employment in the retail sector grew steadily coming out of the Great Recession, reaching an all-time high of 15.9 million workers in January 2017 (for context, that was nearly 3.6 million more people than the entire American manufacturing workforce).

But after that, growth sagged, and then flatlined. Today, retail employs about the same number of people as it did two years ago, while the rest of the economy has continued adding about 200,000 jobs per month.

Last year, companies announced 98,563 retail job cuts, the highest total since 2009, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Vice President Andy Challenger thinks the pain isn't over.

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